James Roque

INFO

Name	James Roque (he/him)
Also known as	Badong
Born	1991
Country of Birth	Philippines
Place of Residence	Toronto
Ethnicities	Filipino
Artform	Comedy
Decades Active	2000s, 2010s, 2020s

ABOUT

James Roque is a comedian, writer, voice artist and multimedia creator based in Toronto. His stand-up comedy celebrates Pinoy culture through a “zippy, relaxed, upbeat and fun” style.

Roque moved to Aotearoa from Manila when he was eight and attended Glenfield Primary School in Tāmaki Makaurau. Named ‘The Filipino step-son of New Zealand comedy’, Roque started his comedy career at 18 through the 2009 NZ Comedy Festival’s Class Comedians program. In 2012, he had his first New Zealand International Comedy Festival show alongside Eli Mathewson and Edith Poor. The next year he was nominated for Best Newcomer for James Roque is Chicken! Over his career, he has opened for Nick Kroll, Ron Funches, Demitri Martin and Ronny Chieng.

Following the completion of his Bachelor of Performing and Screen Arts at Unitec in 2012, Roque worked as a character actor for events and parties, where he was once hired to play the King of Malaysia at an affluent house party in Takapuna. He also played in Fractious Tash’s Titus and Indian Ink Theatre Company’s Kiss the Fish. He described his twenties as “experiencing wild shit at the hands of white people” which informs the themes of racism and migration woven into his stand-up. His show Fred Award-nominated Boy Mestizo “unpacks Filipino history and how much colonisation has a grip on Filipinos,” while Badong, a show named after his Filipino nickname, tells his story as a young immigrant and how it felt to be treated like an outsider.

Roque has been an advocate for the visibility of Filipino people in the arts. In 2013, he co-founded Proudly Asian Theatre with Chye-Ling Huang as a reaction to the lack of Asian representation in Aotearoa New Zealand. The company develops, produces and empowers Asian practitioners and stories based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Roque said in 2017, he realised he’d been pronouncing his last name (rok-keh) incorrectly. He has since adjusted his pronunciation and been on a journey of reclaiming his identity as an immigrant. In an interview, he said the way he has talked about his ethnicity and race on stage has shifted from being self-deprecating to accepting and proud. In 2020, Roque directed Pinay, the country’s first bilingual Filipino New Zealand production. In addition, he formed the sketch group Frickin Dangerous Bro with Pax Assadi and Jamaine Ross which regularly performed on stage and on Only in Aotearoa. He was part of Basement Theatre’s improv troupe, SNORT.

Roque’s TV credits include recurring roles in Good Grief and Last at Eleven and he was a regular contributor to Jono and Ben, 7 Days and Funny Girls. He was one of the panelists on The Masked Singer NZ in 2021, and has appeared in television and online commercials for Bluebird, Hello Fresh, and Spark.

In 2023, Roque moved to Toronto and featured in the New York City Filipino Comedy Festival lineup that October.