James III is an American writer, producer and actor best known for Co-Creating and Co-Starring in the Netflix sketch series Astronomy Club (2019) and contributing to the script for Good Burger 2. James served as a Consulting Producer on the Nickelodeon series Young Dylan (2020) and was a Staff Writer on the awesome reboot of All That (2019). With Astronomy Club members, Jonathan Braylock and Jerah Milligan, James co-hosts the podcast Black Men Can't Jump [In Hollywood]. He is also the founder of RULE OF III, INC. a production company making film, television, podcasts, and beyond, including four comic books. The first of which “Junior” was 150% funded on Kickstarter in February 2023. These projects feature art by Marcus Kwame Anderson (Eisner winner), Quinn McGowan (RINGO winner), JPNT17 (Disney), cover art from Jamal Igle (DC Comics), Ben Passmore (Eisner winner), and many more.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
I write, I act, I produce. I just started a comic book company called Rule of Three, Inc. The first comic is called Junior, which is out and available now, so please pick it up. Junior is a comedy-horror. I love sci-fi superheroes and time-travel stuff.
What formative experiences in your childhood or adult life motivated you to become a Creator?
I was a weird kid. I mean people called me weird, you know. People called me nerd; people called me this, that, and the other. But I didn't feel like I was weird. But when I go back and look at home videos, I think I was certainly a strange kid. I did impressions. I always did impressions of cartoons and stuff. I remember going to Disneyland when I was maybe six or seven years old, and the entire time I'm doing the voice of Iago, the parrot from Aladdin, the whole time.
I went to performing arts middle school and performing arts high school. From a young age, I was really inspired by people like Spielberg and Tim Burton, comedians like Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy. I’m a big Nickelodeon fan. Love the Keenan and Kel Show. Everyone who was on Nickelodeon during the 90s to 2000s was a heavy influence for me.
How did it all come together?
Slowly. I went to school in New York and studied acting. I did improv comedy at school and did it when I got out of school. I started doing theater. I wasn't quite popping in the way that I wanted to in the theater space, but found some nice work. I got involved in an experimental theater in Brooklyn for a number of years. I did a lot weird plays that I am very proud of and was sort of surprised
how connected to the experimental off-Broadway theater space I was.
Then I think things really started to click for me when I started taking classes at the UCB theater in New York. That's where I met a lot of my current collaborators. I worked with some people there, and we founded an improv team called “Astronomy Club”. First we started doing sketch comedy and then that led to us ultimately doing a series for television.
My time there is what connected me to the industry in a nice way, you know. It wasn't a direct line necessarily. It wasn't like once you're here you're going to be on SNL, which is what brought me to UCB. Like I remember watching an episode of SNL and being like I want to do that and signing up for classes that week. You know there are industry eyes on you now at a theater like UCB, and that led to agent meetings and showcases.
Once you started to come into my own as a comedic performer and writer, how did you pursue finding professional representation?
The first one I kind of found through a meet-and-greet. I was fortunate enough to to meet with someone who liked my work ,and I worked with them for a number of years, and then they let me go they were– like Listen. This isn't working. As I said I was in the theater space and things weren't quite clicking, then comedy is what led to my next rep. Someone on one of my comedy teams recommended me to their rep, and the rep was already familiar with my work because I had been working with these people and doing all these shows.
I did a live audition for SNL at that time that my friend's rep was at, happened to see my act, and liked it and then the next day we started the talks.
I think it is worth you being the squeaky wheel and asking for what you want. If there's something that you want, asking for it may not always work out but if you are at the same time putting yourself out there and continuing to work on yourself I think, at least in my case, what has happened is things start to line up.
Can you speak to your experiences co-creating Astronomy Club and writing for All That?
We had been working together as a live-performance sketch and improv team for two years. Our sketch show was getting some attention; we fortunately were doing live showcases and that led to working at at Comedy Central. And while at Comedy Central we developed more content and I think having physical content to point to and say this is our work was integral to getting the the show on the air. We all had a variety of different skills, and we worked really hard to make sure that those skills were represented and we had great people within our ranks that were really good at specifically pitching, producing, hustling,
Something to think about– for just like a broader audience or people that are interested in pursuing this space: try to align yourself with people if there's an area that you're like I don't know so much about. I think that there are several different types of artists out there. There's the one-stop shops (the Donald Glovers) that literally do everything you know and then there's the teams and the producing partners. So I think I personally felt the pressure of “I have to be the one guy who does everything,” but I also think that I'm fortunate that I worked with a team of people that had different sort of skills.
I mean I interviewed for All That twice.When I first interviewed for it, it was before Astronomy Club. I was so excited about this opportunity but I didn't have a lot of sketch on my resume and then four months later or something like that the interview came up again, and I didn't get it that first time interview came up again and at that time we had written like a hundred plus sketches together for this television program that we were working on and it was like I literally just came out of this experience. I think it set me up to be a good candidate to to work on that show.
What are some of the most valuable lessons you learned over the years when it comes to working with different creative partners?
Communication is key. I think the best thing that you can do for yourself is express yourself and so anytime you set you go into a partnership with someone, figure out the boundaries. What are the ways that you want to work together? Establishing those
Roles is important
On the other side of that is knowing that it is okay to speak up for yourself and to make sure that you are putting your voice forward regardless of what you think the outcome will be.
When working with other people, know that it is a partnership even if it's like you're working on a show and someone else's name is on the moniker. Yes, the the buck might stop with that person. That is rightfully so. Their name on the marquee, but you also got that job for a reason, you're going into that partnership for a reason.
How are you defining success these days?
One way is to define it: If I feel good about the words on the page or if I feel good about the performance. I'm starting to produce my own stuff more and more. I'm defining success as have I made time to work on a project for myself? Have I made time to work on something that is mine, that is going to be able to represent me? Have I been able to make time for that? I think that feels like success to me too.
What's one piece of advice that you'd give to a new Creator?
This was true for me. What seems to be true for a lot of people that I know is that a lot of times you might be afraid to share something, you might be afraid to start something, you might be afraid to post something, and that fear is good because it means you care, right? It means you care about the thing that you are working on, but I want to just encourage anyone that is just getting started out to post the thing one.
