Played By:Landon Pigg
Birthdate & Age: September 12, 1981 & 28
Screen name: AIM screenname.

Credits

Biography:Jason James Bellamy was born on September 12, 1981, in Providence, Rhode Island. With a mother who had worked in P.R. and a father whose 1970s-era limelight aspirations had led him to first chair violin of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, show business seemed like it should have been bred right into his blood. As it would many times over in his life, irony came into play early on; Jason was far from the extroverted spotlight thief who would have dreams of Hollywood. Clingy was an understatement, as his dependence on his family and the little niche he'd carved out for himself kept him close to home for the first five years of his life. With kindergarten came culture shock; the school-year was spent primarily hiding out in the coat closet, and Jason retreated even further into himself when faced with the onslaught of new faces and exuberant children after years of living in a world of imagination that only had enough room in it for him.

His parents, probably fearing that they were raising a selective mute who would spend his formative years locked in a dark room building pipe bombs, opted to take a relatively aggressive route to socializing Jason. His mother was the driving force behind his acting career - literally, as most of her days were devoted to shuttling the six-year-old back and forth to auditions. What with Jason's complete inability (and stubborn unwillingness) to open his mouth long enough to run the lines necessary for a viable test shot, it came as a complete surprise when his breakthrough role came about. Playing an enthusiastic McDonald's patron was an extreme case of playing against type, but his first song-and-dance routine at the age of six was enough to give him the first push toward seeking out the spotlight. Or at least making pleasant conversation with kids on the playground.

By the time fifth grade rolled around, Jason had graduated from shilling products to children (after making upwards of sixty commercials over a period of four years, for products that ran the gamut from Hot Wheels to Tide) to hitting open calls for bit parts on television. In another fit of irony, Jason's TV career stagnated completely at commercials during his acting career version 1.0; he never booked a single call-back for any of the primetime or children's shows he auditioned for over the next two years. Movies, however, were another story. As the 90s ticked by, Jason carved out a brand new niche for himself (one that didn't involve locking himself in his bedroom for hours at a time to play god over a Lego universe) as the plucky underdog in a series of back-to-back family films. Home Alone, its sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and My Girl (the role that launched his career as a champion make out artist) laid the groundwork for a smashingly successful life in Hollywood - by the time he was twelve, Jason had raked in almost six million dollars for his work on those three films.

Unfortunately, puberty happened, sending his career to a gear-grinding halt. Braces, sudden weight loss, even more sudden growth, and a smattering of unfortunate skin left him more or less awkwardly out of the acting game for the better part of junior high. From 1994 to 1998, Jason slid off the map - which, unbeknownst to him, would serve as an excellent practice run for his future attempts at living under the radar - and took the time to move through high school without the added stress of 5:00AM call times. Still, when he emerged from the ashes of hormone rushes with a brand new body and a baby face, Jason was quick to jump back on the horse. He bagged an audition for and then a role in 1999's American Beauty through the careful wheedling of his manager and the good graces of a casting director who could remember Kevin McCallister. Though he enjoyed the experience in a 'how I met my summer vacation' kind of way, Jason couldn't feel the same pleasure he had as a kid when he went back to the set for the first time in four years. Acting had lost some of its shine, and at the ripe old age of eighteen, Jason Bellamy was ready to step down indefinitely.

In the fall of 2000, Jason enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design, at first floating aimlessly before finally settling into a four-year program for burgeoning architects. For the first year, he reverted to his five-year-old self, sticking close to home and commuting (he'd gotten his license no less than two weeks before principle photography started on American Beauty) to RISD. With no other fields to push him into, his parents dealt with Jason's post-acting rut in relative silence, though they were openly pleased with his decision to live in the dorms for the rest of his degree program. Living on campus less than six months after his last movie role made for some interesting social interactions, most of which involved laughing politely at the newest interpretation of the Kevin McCallister Post-Shave Scream, but as time passed, Jason settled comfortably into his role as Former Child Star and the relative obscurity it brought. By the time his second year rolled around, he was unknown enough to hold down a job at the nearest off-campus Jamba Juice, where he mastered the art of smoothie-making in short order.

By his second year, the sophomore blahs had started to settle in. For the first time in a couple of years, Jason felt a pull toward the camera that he'd thought he'd left behind. When CBS issued an open casting call for an upcoming episode of a new drama, he went with the long shot and tried for a one-shot role in the one area he'd consistently struck out in - television. Strangely enough, one solid week out of the summer before his third year was spent on a set in Vancouver, British Columbia, shooting an episode of Without a Trace. His turn as a brooding teenager with a grand total of seven minutes worth of screen time left Jason looking for another way to fulfill his acting wanderlust. While his degree in architecture gathered dust on the shelf, Jason struck out on the audition circuit again, booking a few more commercials (Wendy's, Mac Computers, various informercials) before landing another one episode gig with the WB's Supernatural.

With a few guest spots under his belt - usually under the name James Bell - Jason eventually took his biggest chance of all with another CBS show. His original audition for Criminal Minds was for the bit part of the pilot's villain. During his call back, Jason screen tested for the role of Doctor Spencer Reid, a twenty-four-year-old genius with a passion for argyle sweatervests and an intense social awkwardness that rivaled Jason's own. When his attempts at leaving the casting office with a quip about playing himself led to him nearly walking into a door, Jason thought he had effectively talked himself out of his one-shot pilot guest spot.

After four seasons as Doctor Reid (with a fifth on the way), Jason's been beaten with sticks, drugged by sociopaths, looked in a cult compound and dosed with anthrax. Inexplicably, Doctor Reid - probably as a result of his ability to fall into harm's way at least once a week - has catapulted Jason Bellamy to levels of cultic love that he'd never thought possible; all in all, Acting Career version 2.0 has brought about an onslaught of fanfic, sexually provocative photo manipulations and more movie offers than he's had since he shook off the ugly duckling years.