He was a child actor turned armed robber. Now he's a College graduate and cook with an enduring need to entertain.
The James Ruderman story.
Former child actor James Ruderman puts it this way: “I’m a cautionary tale. You can really screw up, but you can also get your life back on track.”
He’s 36 years old now and works as a cook at the Beamish House in Port Hope. He’s led an interesting life.
He was born and raised in Brampton and worked as an actor from the ages of 9-13, something his personality destined him for.
“I was an insecure kid. My parents said I was addicted to attention. My father had a friend, and his wife was the talent agent Jo Penny. I begged for an introduction, and she ended up signing me. So I got my headshots, and my parents enrolled me in acting lessons.”
It paid off. He started getting work.
His first gig was a fashion show for Sears, held at one of their stores. After that, he was hired as a model for a Tim Hortons marketing campaign.
His first on-screen acting job was as an extra in an independent movie called The Tooth. Then he shot a promotional spot for Nickelodeon that aired in the U.S. and some Christmas-themed promotional shorts for YTV.
In 1996 he worked on Harriet The Spy as a continuity extra.
When he was eleven, he got a speaking role in 1999’s Pushing Tin—starring Kate Blanchett, John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Angelina Jolie. His two lines of dialogue and three days on the set earned him $1700. He didn’t shoot with Thornton, Jolie, or Blanchett, but was onset with John Cusack and wasn’t impressed. “I thought Cusack was a dick.”
Pushing Tin was filmed in Canada, and James’s work qualified him for membership in ACTRA. He was now a bona fide professional actor.
But he gradually lost his taste for acting and left the business at 13 when he was offered an audition for Mercury Rising. “I looked at the pages and said, ‘Fuck that.’”
He soon fell in with the wrong crowd, and his addictive personality found other channels of expression. “In high school, I got addicted to cocaine.”
When he was 17, he staged a home invasion/armed robbery in Brampton—looking for $2000 in cash and cocaine he was told was stashed in the house. A witness called the police while the robbery was in progress, and he was taken down by a police tactical unit.
While awaiting trial, he ran scams at Pearson to get drug money, pretending to be stranded at the airport and needing money for a bus ticket home. It was a lucrative scam, netting him $300-$400 a night.
While he was never incarcerated, he fell into a cycle of drug abuse, poverty, and homelessness that he didn’t fully emerge from until he was 23 when his father set him and his brother up in a condo. At 25, he completed a media studies program and then earned a two-year business diploma with a marketing specialization.
At 28, he moved to Port Hope to be with his mom and to get away from the temptations of city life.
He’s been a line cook at the Beamish House for the last three years. He fell into restaurant work when he was 19 and has worked in the industry in one capacity or another ever since.
“I’m proud of some of the stuff I’ve accomplished in my life, but I always wonder where I’d be now if I’d stuck to acting and hadn’t screwed things up. Acting itself seems silly to me, but I still have the compulsion to entertain.”
Recently the Beamish held a lip-synching drag contest. He performed as Jimifer Lopez. And James and his buddy Spencer—the kitchen manager at the Beamish— constantly entertain one other, telling jokes and riffing on whatever captures their attention.
But lately, he’s considered getting new headshots and giving acting another try.
“I’m addicted to applause. It beats the shit out of any other drug I’ve tried.”