Recently James guest stared on the USA television show, Psych.  Psych, which is currently in its third season, revolves around the characters of Shawn Spencer, played by James Roday, and his best friend Burton ‘Gus’ Guster, played by Dulé Hill.  Shawn is a rookie sleuth who dupes the police into believing he is psychic, and is often hired by them to help them solve crimes.  The episode of Talk Derby to Me, in which James guest stars, is about a roller derby team suspected of a series of robberies.  James plays the character of Rita Westwood, a member of the team.

James was first interested in wrestling at a young age.  “Honestly, I’ve been a fan of wrestling ever since I was a little girl.  I remember watching it with my dad and my grandpa.  I’ve just been an avid fan for a number of years…I kind of fell into it.  I was working at this bar and at the time it was WCW and WWE and so any time I was working and wrestling was on it was on the TV and I was just glued to it.  So a friend of mine was like, “Well, a buddy of mine has a school up in D.C.,” which is like two and a half hours from me, “It’s up around D.C., you should go up there and check it out.”  I was just totally baffled at the fact that there was even such a thing as a wrestling school.  I was looking into getting into kick boxing and I took martial arts when I was in high school and so I was looking, a single girl living in the city, I just wanted to take some type of self defense and do something besides just working out in the gym every day, to do something that was athletic and keep my mind and my body in shape as well.  I ended up going up there and checking it out and then I signed right up and I’ve been doing it ever since.  Now it’s going on eleven years later.”

Having been a wrestler helped James in her role in Psych.  “I think that the getting locked into the character; my character right now on TV is not too much a stretch of who I am in reality, just a girl next door.  I grew up in the country and I enjoy riding my horses and I’m pretty down to earth, but when I first came in I was portraying this kind of psychotic character, who was like a stalker fan of one of the other divas, Trish Stratus.  So to be able to get locked into that character and to become that character, I think that whole aspect helped me in the acting world, as well as far as getting locked into a character and becoming the character and just feeling it out and doing it and reacting rather than just acting, but actually reacting as that character.”

James was first approached to be on the show by one of the lead actors.  “Ironically enough, James, who plays Shawn on the show, is a big wrestling fan and he actually requested me due to the story line that I had with Trish Stratus when I first came in.  So I’m really honored to be a part of it.  I was actually really honored that he actually requested me.”

The best part of working on the show for James was working with the cast.  “I think it was interacting with everyone back stage, because they were funny.  They made me feel really, really comfortable because I was a little nervous at first because I’d never really done; I’d done like Celebrity Fit Club and stuff like that, but I’d never done any type of acting on a TV show or anything like that, so it was really, really cool to be able to see that side, because everything that we do on Monday Night RAW is live, so it’s in the moment kind of deal and it was just cool to be able to go through and see how it’s done on this side of the industry…I was expecting everybody to be wrapped up in their own role or in their own world.  I didn’t really know what to expect, so I was very pleased when I got there to be so warm and everybody was really cool and down to earth.  We all laughed and we all joked and they just accepted me and made me feel very comfortable, which was really refreshing…I stood around and watched them film a lot.  Just seeing Dulé and James interact between each other a lot was hilarious to me, because they were constantly cutting on each other.  There wasn’t really any funny moments or anything that happened that was out of the ordinary.  It was just everybody cutting up and just having a good time.”

James found working with the cast as much fun as watching them on television.  “Those two [Roday and Hill] are characters.  They were cutting up the whole time and it was so hard to keep a straight face a lot of the time because they had me laughing a lot.  They were giving me definitely a run for my money because we were just joking around the whole time…The co-star I worked with most was Maggie [Lawson] because most of the scenes that I did were with her because I was portraying this villainess roller-derby girl and she was actually under cover in my roller-derby group, so we actually got to work a lot with each other.”   

James approaches acting on a series different than acting in the ring.  “Well, the thing is in the ring everything that we do, I wrestle on Monday Night RAW and everything is live so if I mess up the whole world knows it… The difference, I would say, is that if I mess up on camera while we’re filming then we can cut and we can redo it and you can do it two different ways.  We won’t just shoot it once.  We’ll shoot it at least three times or whatever just in case.  I may do something different in each take and there’s just one that we like better; whereas in the ring since everything is live you get one shot to do it and you do your best and hope for the best.  It was cool to see the differences of the world as far as since everything is live on our show.  There’s a lot of pressure as far as performance to be there right on time and there’s a lot of pressure as well filming just because it’s another aspect and you want to make sure that you’re open to the camera or that you hit it differently every time, whether it’s the expression on your face or whatever just so you can play with it and see which one you like the best.”

However, James is still more comfortable in the ring.  “I think I found more comfort, obviously, because I’m more comfortable with the live.  That’s what I’m accustomed to.  I like that pressure, but I don’t think I prefer one over the other actually.  I think that they’re both...their own entity kind of feel, like there’s pressure in both of them and there’s a lot of fun in both of them.”

James found the most challenge in the show when working with the dialog.  “The most challenging was making sure that I had my lines down and to get into the character, because I don’t really memorize a lot of lines.  I do acting.  I have bullet points that I need to hit for Monday Night RAW.  There are certain bullet points, but there’s no set verbiage as what I’m supposed to say.  I found that most challenging and I studied really hard and I tried to get my lines down as much as possible.  I think I did pretty good.  I really didn’t forget my lines that much, but to be able to memorize the lines and to get locked into the character and become the character at the same time, because it’s not always, the part, something that you yourself would say.  It’s the character that you’re acting would say.”

Even with the challenges, James enjoyed working with the script.  “It was cool to work with and plus, obviously, they give you direction and everything, but I was still able to play with the character a little bit and make it my own.  I think it’s important that with any character in acting or anything to embrace the character and become the character, but also make it your own because only you know how you would portray that character.  The director was really cool and he worked with me and I was able to work with it and make it my own enough to where I felt really comfortable being Rita Westwood.”

Skating during the episode came fairly easy for James because she had skated in her childhood.  “They didn’t know this, but when I was younger my mom used to work at, it was actually Skateland at the time, and I think it’s still called that actually.  So I used to go up there all of the time, plus I used to ride horses, so I’ve always been an athlete, but I used to go up there all of the time and skate.  I was a little nervous since I hadn’t put on a pair of skates in a while, but I picked it right back up, which was really neat, because I was pretty good at it when I was younger, so I didn’t fall down, which was a good thing.”

However, there were still aspects of skating that James was happy to learn.  “There was a few days where I was on them all day, which was really cool, because we also had the Vancouver roller-derby team there, so they taught me some cool ways to fall just in case I fell down, which I didn’t need it, but it was neat because they showed me some cool slides and different ways to fall.  I learned this really cool, it looks like a rock slide almost, like how rock and rollers do the rock slide across the stage, so I learned that slide and I learned different ways to fall down.  I had some skating background, which was good for me, so I was able to do that.  Plus, I was able to practice a little bit before the filming…I didn’t really train for it prior to it except for once I got there on set, the down time in between or before we’d shoot.  I’d try to go out there and skate around just to make sure that I was okay.”

James also learned about the world of roller derby while filming.  “Well, I’d seen where there was a show about roller-derby girls and I knew it was making a comeback as far as the roller-derby kind of deal.  When I worked there they had the hockey and stuff like that on skates, but there was really no roller-derby team, but I think there is one there now.  It really kind of opened my eyes to that world, because I really wasn’t that aware of it aside from what I’d seen on TV or just here and there…I have a new found respect for…The Vancouver roller-derby team was there with us showing us different stuff with roller-derby and stuff.  I didn’t realize that they were as tough and that they get out there and they pretty much beat each other up a little bit.  I respect that being an athlete myself and getting beat up and beating people up all of the time.  I respect it a lot because that kind of stuff takes a toll on your body.  You’re not only using your mind thinking up your next move, but your body is taking punishment and it’s exhausting and you have to work on adrenaline a lot of times too.  I found it really, really neat and it opened my eyes to their world a little bit, so I have a new found respect for them.”

James considers the physicality of the roller derby and wrestling quite different.  “I wouldn’t say the physicality is somewhat the same, because I think that they’re tough or whatever, but in the world of wrestling we’re on the road three hundred days out of the year.  We don’t have an off season and we travel from city to city and we put on a live show every night.  Plus, you have to get to the gym and everything else, so I think that our industry is very demanding on your body.  I know that the roller-derby, they probably do it once a week where they have a match once a week and then they have the rest of the week for their body to recuperate and then they go back to their regular jobs and it’s more of a hobby where the wrestling is my job.”

James enjoyed acting in Psych and would love to do it again.  She thinks a wrestling themed episode would be fun and has an idea of who should be in it if it were to happen.  “Obviously, it would probably be really cool to have John Cena or Triple H or Randy Orton in the episode.  As far as the girls, myself or Candace Michelle or Michelle McCool or anybody honestly, because everybody is so talented and so I think it would be cool to see the different personalities in the characters come in on any aspect ... it would be hard to pick just one.” 

Acting in general is attractive to James.  “I would be honored to do something like this again.  I had so much fun and it was really just cool to be involved with them and everyone was really, really cool and I just actually had so much fun.  I’m definitely hoping to do some more acting in the near future…I would love to do some more shows or do a movie or anything really.  I think that any opportunity is a blessing, so you should embrace it.”