Bobby Cannavale

Roberto Michael Cannavale (/ˌkænəˈvɑːli/; born May 3, 1970) is anAmerican actor. He is best known for various television roles, including leading roles in Third Watch, Vinyl, and Mr. Robot, as well as recurring roles in Will & Grace, which won him the 2005 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, and Boardwalk Empire, for which he won the 2013 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. From 2018 to 2020, Cannavale portrayed Colin Belfast in the Amazon Prime Video psychological thriller series Homecoming (2018–2020). In 2021, he had a role in the Hulu miniseries, Nine Perfect Strangers, based on the novel of the same name by Liane Moriarty,

Cannavale is also known for his roles in theater and film. For his roles in the plays Mauritius and The Motherfucker with the Hat, Cannavale was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play and the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, respectively. In film, he has starred in Tom McCarthy's The Station Agent (2003) and Win Win (2011), Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine (2013), Annie (2014), Paul Feig's Spy (2015), Marvel's Ant-Man (2015), I, Tonya (2017), Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017), Martin Scorsese's The Irishman (2019), Sing 2 (2021), and Blonde (2022).

Cannavale was born on May 3, 1970. He grew up in Union City, New Jersey, the son of Isabel and Salvatore "Sal" Cannavale. His father is of Italian descent, while his mother is Cuban and moved to the U.S. in 1960. He was raised Catholic and attended St. Michael's Catholic School, where he participated in a number of extracurricular activities, including being an altar boy and member of the chorus. When he was 8, Cannavale secured the plum role of the lisping boy, Winthrop, in his school's production of The Music Man and later played a gangster in Guys and Dolls, which cemented his love for performing. Cannavale's parents divorced when he was 13 and his mother moved the family to Puerto Rico. After two years in the American territory, they settled in Margate, Florida. From 1983 to 1986, Cannavale attended Coconut Creek High School, but during his senior year, he was expelled “for being a cutup.” He then returned to New Jersey to live with his grandmother in order to be closer to New York to launch his acting career and went to summer school to earn a diploma from Union Hill High School.

Cannavale began his acting career in the theater – with no acting training – and gained early film roles in Night Falls on Manhattan (1997) and The Bone Collector (1999), Cannavale became well known when he starred as Bobby Caffey for two seasons on Third Watch. Following this, in 2001, he starred with Alan Arkin in 100 Centre Street – which was written and directed by Sidney Lumet, his then-father-in-law.

In 2002, he joined the cast of Ally McBeal for the last five episodes, but the show was then cancelled. Following this, he starred with Yancey Arias and Sheryl Lee in the miniseries Kingpin. In 2003, Cannavale briefly appeared on the last two episodes of Oz. He also appeared in the film The Station Agent as a man who befriends a little person removed from society. From 2004 to 2006, he had a recurring guest role on Will & Grace as Vince D'Angelo, the boyfriend (and eventual husband) of Will Truman (Eric McCormack). However, in the reboot, they are revealed not to be married. For this role, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 2005. He has also appeared in the films The Guru (2002), Shall We Dance? (2004), Romance & Cigarettes (2005) and Snakes on a Plane, and guest-starred in Sex and the City, Six Feet Under, Oz, Law & Order – and its spin-off series Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He appeared in The Take (2007) as Agent Steve Perelli, alongside John Leguizamo and Tyrese Gibson.

Cannavale serves as the voice of Corado R. Ciarlo, known as "Babe", in the Ken Burns PBS film series The War (the story of World War II) from the perspective of the men who fought in combat and their loved ones at home. He also read the audiobook versions of Richard Price's 2008 novel Lush Life and Ed Falco's 2012 novel The Family Corleone. On August 25, 2008, ABC ordered his pilot Cupid, a remake of the 1998 program which had starred Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshall, to series. In the new version of the series, Cannavale starred opposite Sarah Paulson with script development overseen by original series creator Rob Thomas. ABC debuted Cupid on March 31, 2009, but cancelled the series after less than two months, on May 19, 2009.

In 2008, he received a Tony Award nomination for his role as Dennis in the Broadway play, Mauritius. In 2009, CBS announced Cannavale would reprise his role of Det. Eddie Saccardo on the television show, Cold Case, for three episodes, starting with the third episode of Season 7. Cannavale was in the film The Other Guys (2010), and played the role of Terry Delfino in the film Win Win (2011). He later starred in the Broadway play The Motherfucker with the Hat alongside Chris Rock and Annabella Sciorra. On May 3, 2011 (his 41st birthday), he was nominated for a Tony Award for his leading role in that production.

In 2012 and 2013, he guest-starred in the fourth and fifth season of Showtime's Nurse Jackie, for which he was nominated twice again for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 2012 and 2013, as well as joining the cast of HBO's Boardwalk Empire, portraying the psychopathic Sicilian gangster Gyp Rosetti in the third season. His performance on Boardwalk Empire won critical acclaim, earning him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2013. That same year he also played Lewis, a vengeful clown on Modern Family during the third season, for which he was nominated for Best Guest Performer in a Comedy Series at the 2nd Critics' Choice Television Awards in 2012. TV Guide, in its "Cheers & Jeers 2012" issue, praised Cannavale for this "trifecta of great performances", commenting, "This guy is so good at playing bad, it's scary." He played what Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com called a "heroically moving" lead role in Danny Collins in 2015.

Since 2015, Cannavale has been involved with voice-over work for Playing On Air, a non-profit organization that "records short plays [for public radio and podcast] written by top playwrights and performed by outstanding actors." He has starred in three short plays, including Crazy Eights by David Lindsay-Abaire, co-starring Rosie Perez and John Leguizamo; Mere Mortals by David Ives; and 2 Dads by David Auburn.

In January 2020, Cannavale appeared with his real-life partner Rose Byrne in the play Medea, written and directed by Simon Stone.

In 2021, Cannavale played Tony Hogburn in the Nicole Kidman led Hulu miniseries, Nine Perfect Strangers, based on the novel of the same name by Liane Moriarty, of which also featured Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon, Luke Evans, Samara Weaving, and Asher Keddie.

In 2022, Cannavale can be seen portraying Dean Braddock in the 2022 Netflix series, The Watcher.

From 1994 to 2003, Cannavale was married to actress/screenwriter Jenny Lumet – director Sidney Lumet's daughter and performer Lena Horne's granddaughter – with whom he has a son, actor Jake Cannavale. Cannavale and Jake were cast as father and son in season four of Nurse Jackie.

Cannavale has been in a relationship with Australian actress Rose Byrne since 2012. Their first child was born in 2016, and a second child in 2017.

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	Night Falls on Manhattan	Vigoda Assistant #1
1999	Gloria	Jack Jesus Nunez
1999	The Bone Collector	Detective Steve
2000	3 A.M.	Jose
2002	Washington Heights	Angel
2002	The Guru	Randy
2003	Shortcut to Happiness	Cop
2003	The Station Agent	Joe Oramas
2004	Fresh Cut Grass	Billy Pecchio
2004	Haven	Lieutenant
2004	Shall We Dance?	Chic
2004	The Breakup Artist	Neighbor
2005	Happy Endings	Javier Duran
2005	Romance & Cigarettes	Chetty Jr. / "Fryburg"
2006	The Night Listener	Jess
2006	Fast Food Nation	Mike
2006	Snakes on a Plane	Henry "Hank" Harris
2006	10 Items or Less	Bobby
2007	The Ten	Marty McBride
2007	Dedication	Don Meyers
2008	The Take	Agent Steve Perelli
2008	Diminished Capacity	Lee Vivyan
2008	The Promotion	Mark Timms
2008	100 Feet	Lou Shanks
2009	Paul Blart: Mall Cop	Commander James Kent
2009	The Merry Gentleman	Michael Elkhart
2009	Brief Interviews with Hideous Men	Subject #40
2009	Louis C.K.'s Last Chance	Porn Producer	Short film
2010	F—K	Bobby	Short film
2010	The Other Guys	Jimmy
2010	Apples	Nino	Short film
2010	Weakness	Joshua Polansky
2011	Win Win	Terry Delfino
2011	Roadie	Randy Stevens
2013	Movie 43	Superman	Segment: "Super Hero Speed Dating"
2013	Parker	Jake Fernandez
2013	Lovelace	Butchie Peraino
2013	Blue Jasmine	Chili
2014	Chef	Tony
2014	Adult Beginners	Danny
2014	Annie	Guy Danlily
2015	Danny Collins	Tom Donnelly
2015	Spy	Sergio De Luca
2015	Ant-Man	Jim Paxton
2015	Daddy's Home	Emilio Francisco
2016	The Fundamentals of Caring	Cash	Uncredited
2017	Hair	Bobby Cannavale	Short film
2017	The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature	Frankie (voice)
2017	I, Tonya	Martin Maddox
2017	Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle	Professor John Hardin Van Pelt	Credited as Van Pelt
2017	Ferdinand	Valiente/Valiente's father (voices)
2017	The Photographer	Photographer	Short film
2018	Boundaries	Leonard
2018	Ant-Man and the Wasp	Jim Paxton
2019	Motherless Brooklyn	Tony Vermonte
2019	The Irishman	Felix "Skinny Razor" DiTullio
2019	The Jesus Rolls	Petey
2019	Martha the Monster	Kevin / Doormat (voice)	Short film
2020	Superintelligence	George Churchill
2021	Tom & Jerry	Spike (voice)
2021	Thunder Force	William "The King" Stevens
2021	Jolt	Detective Vicars
2021	This Is the Night	Frank Larocca
2021	Sing 2	Jimmy Crystal (voice)
2022	Seriously Red	Wilson
2022	Blonde	Joe DiMaggio
TBA	Old Dads		Post-production
TBA	Inappropriate Behavior	Max Brandel	Filming

Key

Denotes films not yet released

Television

Stage

Primetime Emmy Awards

Tony Awards

Other awards