Benjamin David "Jamie" Elman (born July 5, 1976) is a

Canadian American Canadian Americans is a term that can be applied to American citizens whose ancestry is wholly or partly Canadian, or citizens of either country that hold dual citizenship. The term ''Canadian'' can mean a nationality or an ethnicity. Canadian ...

actor, best known for his leading roles of Cody Miller on YTV's '' Student Bodies,'' Luke Foley in

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

's ''

American Dreams ''American Dreams'' is an American drama television series that ran on NBC for three seasons & 61 episodes, from September 29, 2002, to March 30, 2005. The show tells the story of the Pryor family of Philadelphia during the mid-1960s, with many ...

,'' and himself in '' Yidlife Crisis''.

Life and career

Elman was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and was raised in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...

. He attended

Jewish day school A Jewish day school is a modern Jewish educational institution that is designed to provide children of Jewish parents with both a Jewish and a secular education in one school on a full-time basis. The term " day school" is used to differentiate ...

in Montreal and has taught fourth-graders at a

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of wor ...

religious school in Southern California. In Montreal, Elman began performing in plays such as '' The Children's Hour'' and '' Annie Get Your Gun'' before landing his first roles in TV (''

Are You Afraid of the Dark? ''Are You Afraid of the Dark?'' is a horror anthology television series. The original series aired on Nickelodeon from 1992 to 1996; the pilot episode aired respectively on YTV and Nickelodeon in 1990 and 1991. It led to two revival series, wi ...

'') and film (''

Johnny Mnemonic "Johnny Mnemonic" is a science fiction short story by American-Canadian writer William Gibson. It first appeared in '' Omni'' magazine in May 1981, and was subsequently included in ''Burning Chrome'', a 1986 collection of Gibson's short fiction. ...

''). Elman graduated from

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Univer ...

with a BA in English. He was part of the ensemble cast of the film '' Shattered Glass'' opposite

Hayden Christensen Hayden Christensen (; born April 19, 1981) is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader in the ''Star Wars'' media franchise. He first appeared in the prequel trilogy films, '' Star Wars: Episode ...

and Peter Sarsgaard, and has guest-starred on numerous popular series including ''

Crossing Jordan ''Crossing Jordan'' is an American crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its dete ...

'', ''

Criminal Minds ''Criminal Minds'' is an American police procedural crime drama television series created and produced by Jeff Davis (writer), Jeff Davis. The series premiered on CBS on September 22, 2005, and originally concluded on February 19, 2020; it was r ...

'', ''

Without a Trace ''Without a Trace'' is an American police procedural drama television series created by Hank Steinberg that aired on CBS from September 26, 2002 to May 19, 2009 with the total of seven seasons and 160 episodes. The series focuses the cases of ...

'', ''

CSI: NY ''CSI: NY'' (''Crime Scene Investigation: New York'', stylized as ''CSI: NY/Crime Scene Investigation'') is an American police procedural television series that ran on CBS from September 22, 2004, to February 22, 2013, for a total of nine season ...

'' and ''

The Closer ''The Closer'' is an American television police procedural starring Kyra Sedgwick as Brenda Leigh Johnson, a Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief. A CIA-trained interrogator originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Brenda has a reputation as a c ...

''. Recent roles include starring opposite

Armand Assante Armand Anthony Assante Jr. (; born October 4, 1949) is an American actor. He played mobster John Gotti in the 1996 HBO television film '' Gotti'', Odysseus in the 1997 mini-series adaptation of Homer's ''The Odyssey'', Nietzsche in ''When ...

in ''California Dreaming'' which won the Un Certain Regard award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival; portraying a young

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...

, again opposite Assante and Ben Cross, in ''

When Nietzsche Wept ''When Nietzsche Wept'' is a 2007 American art drama film directed by Pinchas Perry and starring Armand Assante, Ben Cross and Katheryn Winnick. It is based on the novel of the same name by Irvin D. Yalom. It was filmed in Bulgaria. Plot The f ...

''; and on the small screen, where he improvised with Larry David in HBO's ''

Curb Your Enthusiasm ''Curb Your Enthusiasm'' is an American television sitcom produced and broadcast by HBO since October 15, 2000, and created by Larry David, who stars as a semi-fictionalized version of himself. It follows David's life as a semi-retired televi ...

''. In 2009, Elman began work on his first webseries titled ''Brainstorm'' for Dailymotion.com. In April 2010, Elman appeared on the soap opera ''

The Young and the Restless ''The Young and the Restless'' (often abbreviated as ''Y&R'') is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in fictional Genoa City (not the real-life similarly-named Genoa City, Wi ...

'' as Jamie Peterson. Elman and Eli Batalion direct and act in ''YidLife Crisis'', a series of short comedy sketches about two 30-something

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

friends. Most of the dialog is in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

, which the two use as a secret language, but subtitles are provided in English and French. The duo performed at Montreal's

Segal Centre for Performing Arts The Segal Centre for Performing Arts, formerly the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, is a theatre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 5170 chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, in the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâ ...

for a week in January 2022.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

References

External links

* *
Jamie's SpeedReel

''YidLife Crisis''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elman, Jamie 1976 births American male film actors American male television actors Canadian male film actors Canadian male television actors Jewish American male actors Jewish Canadian male actors Living people Male actors from Montreal Male actors from New York City McGill University alumni Yiddish-language satirists 21st-century American Jews