Biography
James O'Regan has more slashes to his name than Freddie from Nightmare on Elm Street: actor/writer/editor/producer/academic. Canadian viewers will remember his acting best from his many comic commercials like: the stubby beer bottle guy for Molson, the sinking on the couch guy for Leon's, the ENO guy, the double talking mechanic for Canadian Tire, the stern boss with steam coming out his ears for Nutriwhip, or the dad who gets punched in the head by the big baby for Granada. Younger viewers will recognize him as Abner Jeffries, comic town constable on CBC/Disney's "Road to Avonlea" (1990) - still playing somewhere in the world as we speak. He played the smart alec neighbor, Carl Jones, on the never-ending TVO series Renovating: The Inside Story. He has appeared in almost every TV series in Canada including Top Cops, Katts & Dog, ENG, Hitchcock, Twilight Zone, Street Legal, T&T, Friday the 13th, and a comedy pilot Peeping Tom playing a cross-dresser! His film work includes Hurt Penguins, Edsville, Blue City Slammers, Clarence, Dream Team, Sea of Love, Anne of Green Gables II, Jane of Lantern Hill and the recent Les Annees Noires on SRC. He continues to audition in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. He has written for all media: stage plays (Eschaton), screenplays (A Charmed Life, Edsville), television (True Life), television skits (The Great Baby Potato Hunt), ad copy for all media, radio plays (Joe Samedi) and commentary (The Food Show, CBA's Information Morning), articles (Harrowsmith), business (Co-op Atlantic, ACOA) and short humor pieces. He is developing a TV series on art in Canada. He also contributed to academic journals, such as Ecumenica, Questions Liturgiques and Ephemerides Liturgicae. James has produced in theatre, radio and film. Many of those slashes came together when he conceived, co-wrote, script edited, produced and acted (playing a priest) in the short comedy film, Edsville. The film, about a couple who stumbles upon a town of Ed Sullivan impersonators, won a Spanish gold medal (Jabega de Oro 1991) for the world's best comedy short and was nominated for both a 1991 Golden Sheaf Award and a 1991 Genie Award for Best Short. Edsville was also the first short film to generate box office revenue in rep cinemas across Canada with a theatrical audience of 10,000. It played in 15 festivals world-wide and had its prime-time network premiere on CBC, January 18, 1992. With a 14 share and 1.02M viewers, it outdrew all CBC comedies for the week. Edsville had its US premiere in New York over Christmas 1992. His second film, a war documentary, is called Shooters (2004), about the Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit during WWII. It took a long seven years to get it done and released as a DVD-on-demand, a television product showing on four Canadian networks. James spent many years researching methodology for live event analysis, especially as it pertains to liturgy and theatre. He presented papers at the McGill-hosted American Academy of Religion conference in May 2005 and in Toronto at the North American Academy of Liturgy in 2011. in 2013, he earned a Ph.D. in systematic and historical theology (U Ottawa, Saint Paul University). He consulted on real time analysis of flooding in Quebec, using a state of the art all-media analysis platform, in 2019, and undertook a year-long study of media analysis in government in 2017. Lately, he has been focussing on data visualization for on-the-fly audience response and analysis. His daughters, Brigit O'Regan and Madalen O'Regan, are violinists, as is his wife, Judy Olmstead-O'Regan.
