STANLEY TUCCI
Date of Birth: January 11, 1960
Born in Peekskill, New York, Stanley Tucci graduated from the acting program at State University of New York at Purchase when he was 22 and got his first film role three years later. But he would have to wait another 11 years before his "big night" which would literally come with the film Big Night, a film he not only acted in but also wrote and directed.
About getting to make Big Night, an excellent little movie about two Italian brothers and a failing restaurant that's guaranteed to make you hungry, Tucci says, "There are exceedingly few people in the world that make the movies they want to make. Woody Allen is one of them. Maybe Bernardo Bertolucci's another. And I guess Bertrand Tavernier. All the others are dead. Even Marty Scorsese struggles. So the chance to do what you set out to do...that's precious."
In Big Night, Stanley plays the brother who wants to compromise on quality and flair in order to keep the failing restaurant afloat while his perfectionist chef sibling (Tony Shalhoub) wants only to create culinary masterpieces. Both actors turn in fine performances that helped them further their careers.
"As an actor," Stanley said about the time immediately following the release of Big Night, "my life has definitely changed. I don't have to go around begging for jobs now."
Since his big break, Stanley has landed roles in other hit films such as A Life Less Ordinary (1997), co-starred in Montana (1997), played the mischevious Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), and Preston Boyd in the 1999 thriller, In Too Deep. For his work as a serial killer in the 2009 film The Lovely Bones, he received his first Academy Award nomination. He also starred in the 2012 film The Hunger Games, based on the bestselling novel by Suzanne Collins and played a supporting role in Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013).
He lent his voice to the animated film Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014). He starred in Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) and in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014). More recently, he starred in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015), the horror film Patient Zero (2017) with Natalie Dormer, Ryan Murphy's series Feud (2017), lent is voice to the live-action adaptation of Disney's Beauty and the Beast (2017), and shared the screen with Mark Wahlberg in Michael Bay's Transformers: The Last Knight (2017).
Most recently, Stanley appeared in the drama The Children Act (2018) alongside Emma Thompson and returns to theaters in the upcoming film A Private War (2018).
Stanley was married in 1995 and his wife, Kate, gave birth to twins in 2000. However, after Stanley reportedly began dating actress Edie Falco while they were co-starring on Broadway in Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, his wife Katie demanded a separation. Stanley and Falco's relationship ended in 2004. Katie took him back, but he lost her to breast cancer in April 2009.
Several years after Stanley and Emily Blunt appeared in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) together, she introduced him to her sister, Felicity Blunt. The two were married in 2012 and currently live in London. Together they have a son, Matteo, and a daughter, Emilia Giovanna.
Filmography (actor):
A Private War (2018)