Best Known As: Star of American Splendor and Sideways
Paul Giamatti has been one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood since breaking through in the 1997 Howard Stern biopic Private Parts. A veteran of small, independent films and big-budget Hollywood features, Giamatti began playing small roles in the early 1990s. By the end of the decade he had earned a following because of memorable roles in such films as The Negotiator (1998, with Samuel Jackson) and Man on the Moon (1999, starring Jim Carrey as Andy Kaufman). Giamatti is known for his slightly offbeat looks and a quirky presence in roles that often involve angry-but-funny outbursts. He played an orangutan in Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes (2001) and the guy who was dyed blue in the comedy Big Fat Liar (2002, with Frankie Muniz). In lead roles, Giamatti has played cartoonist Harvey Pekar in American Splendor (2003), a disgruntled oenophile in Sideways (2004) and a reluctant savior in M. Night Shyamalan's The Lady in the Water (2006).
Giamatti's father was A. Bartlett Giamatti, the former commissioner of major league baseball who famously banned Pete Rose from the game.
Career Highlights: Man on the Moon, Planet of the Apes, Big Momma's House
First Major Screen Credit: Private Parts (1997)
Biography
The balding, likeable, nervous-looking character actor Paul Giamatti is the son of the author, Yale president, and major league baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti. After earning his M.F.A. in Drama from Yale, the younger Giamatti got started on his acting career with small film parts and TV guest spots. He quickly became a recognizable face but his name was not yet well-known in Hollywood, while on-stage he appeared in lead roles for Broadway productions of The Three Sisters and The Iceman Cometh.
Many thought Giamatti was more than deserving of an Academy Award nomination for his role in American Splendor, but when the nods were announced his name was absent. Nonetheless, he received even more raves for his next film. As the wine-loving love-lorn lead in Sideways, Giamatti wowed critics and increased his popularity with audiences exponentially. However, despite the overwhelming accolades and multiple Oscar nominations for the film, Giamatti was again ignored by the Academy.
Next up, Giamatti returned to supporting work with a role in director Ron Howard's acclaimed 2005 biopic of boxer Jim Braddock, Cinderella Man. Playing the concerned, passionate manager to Russell Crowe's headstrong underdog, Giamatti finally received some belated Academy attention, even if he lost the 2005 Best Supporting Actor prize to popular favorite George Clooney. No matter, since Giamatti was already at work on his next leading man project in M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water. Of course his role as the befuddled apartment complex supervisor attempting to protect a mysterious woman who emerges from the swimming pool in Shyamalan's eagerly-anticipated fairy-tale thriller still only seemed like the beginning of an incredibly productive period that continued to capitalize on Giamatti's post-Sideways success, and with an exhausting six films featuring the actor scheduled for release in 2006 alone, the actor previously content essaying supporting roles found himself increasingly gravitating towards the status of leading man.
Still, it wasn't all big budget blockbusters for the screen's most well-known wine connisseur, and with a prominant role as an obsessive falconer in writer/director Julian Goldberger's 2006 adaptation of author Harry Crews 1973 novel The Hawk is Dying, Giamatti delivered the distinct message that his career was still very much about the creativity afforded to actors and not necessarily the financial payoff. An additional role in the romantic fantasy adventure The Illusionist that same year found Giamatti taking a trip back to turn-of-the-century Vienna to play a conflicted police inspector whose outward obligations to the aristocracy belie his growing suspicions that they may be covering up an especially confounding murder. With a voice that was equally as recognizable as his distinctive face, Giamatti began lending his vocal chords to a variety of animated projects including Robots, The Ant Bully, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto and the curiously titled Amazing Screw-on Head as well. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
In 2008 he received his first Emmy Award for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie" for his title performance in the HBO miniseries John Adams, a role that also led to a Screen Actors Guild award. That same year, he starred in the independent film Pretty Bird which is a fictionalized retelling about the drama behind the invention of a rocketbelt.[6]
Giamatti will play noted science fiction author Philip K. Dick in the semi-biopic The Owl in Daylight, which he is producing through his production company, Touchy Feely Productions.
Giamatti has commented on the fact that he often plays Jewish characters, but is almost never cast in Italian roles.[1]
He was nominated for 45 separate awards between 2001 and 2008, and won 26 of them, including both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for John Adams. All of his nominations except one were for American Splendor, Sideways, Cinderella Man, or John Adams; the exception was a Blockbuster Entertainment Award nomination for Big Momma's House.[7]
Formally a resident of the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York,[8] Giamatti has been married to Elizabeth Giamatti (nee Cohen) since 1997. They have a son, Samuel (born 2001).
