Scream

Background:

“I prefer to do comedy over drama because I think I am just plain better at it. I have always wanted to be the funny guy at parties or in social settings or at the gas station.” Jamie Kennedy

Actor, comedian, writer and producer Jamie Kennedy rose to prominence playing Randy Meeks in the Wes Craven popular movie “Scream” (1996), a role he reprised in the sequels “Scream 2” (1997) and “Scream 3” (2000). He won a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for his performance in “Scream 2.” The high energy performer is also known for playing roles in “Romeo and Juliet” (1996), the Academy Award nominated “As Good As It Gets” (1997), the well received independent drama “Clockwatchers” (1997), the box office hit “Enemy of the State” (1998), David O. Russell’s acclaimed “Three Kings” (1999), “Boiler Room” (2000), “The Specials” (2000), “Max Keeble’s Big Move” (2001), “Malibu's Most Wanted” (2003, earned a Teen Choice nomination) and “Kickin It Old Skool” (2007). On the small screen, Kennedy hosted and starred in the comedy show “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment” (The WB, 2002-2004), which he created and produced. More recently, he was cast as a regular on “Ghost Whisperer” (2009-2010). Kennedy is also the creator of the short lived series “The Starlet” (2005), “Living with Fran” (2005-2006) and “Blowin’ Up” (2006), which he also starred in, and the producer of the documentary film “Heckler” (2007) and “In NorthWood” (2010), a thriller starring Nick Stahl that was written and directed by D.W. Brown.

Kennedy is also a recording artist. His debut album, “Blowin’ Up” (2006), featuring tracks recorded during the filming of the TV series of the same name, peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and achieved gold status.

Kennedy, who was handed a 2004 ShowEast Convention for Comedy Star of Tomorrow, owns a production company called “Wannabe Producers,” which he founded with Josh Eting. He also published an autobiography titled “Wannabe: A Hollywood Experiment,” which he wrote with ghostwriter Ellen Rapaport.

Currently, Kennedy resides in Los Angeles, California. He is dating actress Jennifer Love Hewitt. He was once romantically involved with Paris Hilton (together for six months). Kennedy is best friends with Canadian actor Stu Stone. He mentions Denzel Washington, Robert DeNiro, Adam Sandler and Al Pacino as his favorite actors and Ron Howard, Spike Lee and The Hughes Brothers as his favorite directors.

Pennsylvania

Childhood and Family:

The youngest of six children, James Harvey Kennedy, professionally known as Jamie Kennedy, was born on May 25, 1970, in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, to a machinist father and an accountant and paralegal mother. He grew up in a Catholic Irish family. James, whose nicknames are J and Harvey, graduated from Monsignor Bonner High School in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, in 1988. He further pursued his studies at Delaware County Community College before moving to Los Angeles to launch a career as an extra. He later enrolled at the British American Drama Academy, the same school attended by Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti, David Schwimmer, Orlando Bloom, Dan Futterman and Oliver Platt.

Jamie enjoys rollerblading, basketball and volleyball.

JKX

Career:

Discovering a knack for performing by age 15, Pennsylvania native Jamie Kennedy headed to Hollywood after graduating high school and got his start as an extra in the 1989 Peter Weir drama “Dead Poets Society,” starring Robin Williams. To support himself, he worked odd jobs which included working as a pizza delivery man, a janitor at Kmart and delivered singing telegrams. Around this time, he began performing standup routines and created the false persona Marty Power. In one of his comedy performances, he was discovered by an independent filmmaker and cast in the role of Brad in the comedy film “The Road to Flin Flon.” Made in the early 1990s, the film, however, was shelved for a number of years before being released in 2000.

Kennedy made his television acting debut in episodes of the family series “California Dreams” (1994). He followed it up with recurring roles in the comedy series “Unhappily Ever After” (1995, as Stoney) and “Ellen” (1995, as Tad). His first real break arrived the following year when he landed the supporting role of Sampson in the big screen adaptation of William Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet,” which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Co-scripted and directed by Baz Luhrmann, the film received rave reviews from critic and was a huge success at the box office.

However, Kennedy did not get his breakout role until he was cast as film devotee Randy Meeks in the horror film “Scream” (1996), directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson. Starring David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich and Drew Barrymore, the film earned primarily positive reviews from critics and won several awards, including a Saturn for Best Horror Film and a MTV Movie for Best Movie. It was also a box office hit. With an original budget of $14 million, the film made nearly $87 million during its initial release and went on to collect over $173 million worldwide. The success of the film subsequently established Kennedy's film career.

In 1997, Kennedy supported Toni Collette, Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow and Alanna Ubach in the Jill Sprecher successful movie “Clockwatchers,” played heroin junkie Tommy in the comedy “Bongwater,” which starred Luke Wilson and Alicia Witt, worked with Veronica Cartwright and Don Harvey in Darren Stein’s “Sparkler,” appeared as a street hustler in James L.Brooks’ well received comedy “As Good As It Gets,” starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, and starred in Kate William's “Coax.” He also reprised his role of Randy Meeks in the sequel “Scream 2,” from which he won a Blockbuster Entertainment award for Favorite Supporting Actor for his performance. Like its predecessor, “Scream 2” earned generally good response from critics and was a success at the box office. On the small screen, the actor guest starred in “Perversions of Science” and appeared in TV movie “On the Edge of Innocence,” opposite Kellie Martin and James Marsden.

In the last two years of the decade, Kennedy played roles in the independent drama “Stricken” (1998, directed by Paul Chilsen), the drama “Starstruck” (1998, starred as George Gordon Flynn), the thriller “The Pass” (1998, with William Forsythe and James LeGros), director/writer Steven Ho’s comedy “Soundman” (1998, voiced Frank’s Assistant & Marty) and the comedy “The Debtors” (1999, starred Michael Caine). In Tony Scott’s blockbuster “Enemy of the State” (1998), starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman, he offered a memorable supporting as a technician named Jamie Williams. Kennedy also gave notable performances in Frank Oz’s comedy “Bowfinger” (1999, starred comedians Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy) and David O. Russell's drama “Three Kings” (1999, starred George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube).

Kennedy gained even more work in the new millennium. He played a merciless stock broker named Adam in the Wall Street drama “Boiler Room“ (2000), helmed by Ben Younger, appeared in the Jamie Foxx/David Morse action vehicle “Bait” (2000), directed by Antoine Fuqua, and teamed up with Jordan Ladd and Rob Lowe for the comedy “The Specials” (2000), which was directed by Craig Mazin. Kennedy also served as a co-producer for “The Specials.” Also that year, he once again recreated his role of Randy Meeks for “Scream 3,” which was directed by Craven with a screenplay by Ehren Kruger. The film received over $161 million at the box office. Despite its commercial victory, “Scream 3” earned mixed reviews from critics.

Next, Kennedy had a supporting role in “Sol Goode” (2001), which starred Balthazar Getty in the title role, did voiceover work in Eddy Murphy’s vehicle “Dr. Dolittle 2” (2001), was featured as Chaka’s production assistant in Kevin Smith’s “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” (2001), played the Evil Ice Cream Man in the children’s comedy “Max Keeble’s Big Move” (2001), worked with Sam Elliott in the independent movie “Pretty When You Cry” (2001) and supported Brian Cox and John Carroll Lynch in the comedy “Bug” (2002). He also portrayed a rooster in an episode of the animated TV series “Da Mob” (2001) and guest starred in “Strange Frequency” (2001) and “Night Visions” (2002).

After a number of years playing supporting and featured roles, Kennedy emerged as a headliner in the comedy series “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment” (JKX), which he co-created and executive produced. Debuting in January 2002, the show soon became one of the WB Network’s most successful new shows, but was canceled in April 2004 because of low ratings. It was nominated for Teen Choice Awards for TV - Choice Reality Show (2002) and Choice TV - Reality (2003) and a 2004 BET Comedy for Outstanding Comedy Variety Series.

Back to the silver screen, Kennedy starred as Brad Gluckman in the comedy “Malibu's Most Wanted” (2003). He was nominated for a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actor - Comedy for the role. He also co-wrote the script. He then appeared in an unaccredited role in Danny Leiner's “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” (2004), starred as aspiring cartoonist Tim Avery in Lawrence Guterman's comedy “Son of the Mask” (2005) and provided his vocals for the animated film “Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone” (2005). He earned two Razzie nominations in the categories of Worst Actor and Worst Screen Couple for his work in “Son of the Mask.” The film itself won a Razzie for Worst Remake or Sequel. He also executive produced the documentary film “Searching for Angela Shelton” (2004), which was written, directed and starred Angela Shelton.

After the cancellation of “JKX,” Kennedy created the short lived reality program “The Starlet” (the WB, 2005) and the comedy series “Blowin' Up” (MTV, 2006). An album of the same name was released on July 11, 2006, with Kennedy on vocals. It won rave reviews from music critics and rose to No. 3 on the Billboard 200. It was certified gold by RIAA. Kennedy also executive produced and wrote the sitcom “Living With Fran,” which ran on the WB from April 2005 to March 2006. In 2006, he wrote and performed on the standup comedy special “Jamie Kennedy: Unwashed,” which aired on the Comedy Central.

In 2007, Kennedy starred as Justin Schumacher in the box office dud “Kickin It Old Skool,” which he also produced. On learning to break dance for the movie, he stated, “It was very hard. I used to have to go to this break dancing class and I went for 15 months and we'd break dance on the weekend and it was basically a break dancing boot camp. It was a lot. I was sore. We'd break dance so much my eyes would hurt. Every muscle had to be accounted for.”

The same year, he also appeared in the documentary “Heckler,” which he produced with director Michael Addis, played the Ghost of Christmas Past in the made for TV film “Larry the Cable Guy's Christmas Spectacular,” and starred as Joel in the Fox TV film “Me & Lee.”

Kennedy joined the cast of the CBS supernatural show “Ghost Whisperer” in the regular role of the psychology professor Eli James in 2008 during season 4. Also in 2008, he played Ryan Milner in an episode of “Reaper” called “Hungry for Fame” and Mateus in the film “Extreme Movie.” The next year, he portrayed Kyle in the TV series “Fanboy and Chum Chum,” voiced Danno Wolfe in the cartoon film “Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey” and played Richard Harder in Julie Davis' romantic comedy “Finding Bliss,” opposite Leelee Sobieski, Matthew Davis, Donnamarie Recco and Denise Richards. He also began his recurring voice role on the series “The Cleveland Show” (2009-2010, as Federline Jones).

Recently, in 2010, Kennedy costarred with Joe Pantoliano, John Goodman and Sophie Monk in the comedy “Spring Break '83,” which was directed by Mars Callahan and Scott Spiegel. He has also completed filming a drama called “Cafe,” written and directed by Marc Erlbaum. The cast also includes “Ghost Whisperer” star and his current girlfriend Jennifer Love Hewitt and Alexa Vega. He is rumored to be reprising his role of Randy Meeks in the upcoming “Scream 4,” which is scheduled to be released in 2010.

Awards:

• ShowEast Convention: ShowEast Award, Comedy Star of Tomorrow, 2004

• Blockbuster Entertainment: Favorite Supporting Actor - Horror, “Scream 2,” 1998