Paul Giamatti filmography and biography
Date of birth: 6 June 1967, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Paul Giamatti biography
Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti was born June 6, 1967. He graduated from
Choate Rosemary Hall prep school, majored in English at Yale, and
obtained his Master's Degree in Fine Arts, with his major in drama from
the Yale University School of Drama.
Paul is the youngest of three children. His older brother,
Marcus Giamatti, is also an actor. His sister, Elena, designs
jewelry. His father, A. Bartlett Giamatti, was a professor of
Renaissance Literature at Yale University, and went on to become the
university's youngest president. (In 1986, Bart Giamatti was appointed
president of baseball's National League. He became Commissioner of
Baseball on April 1, 1989 and served for five months until his untimely
death on September 1, 1989. He was commissioner at the time
Pete Rose was banned from the game.) Paul's mother, the former
Toni Smith, was an actress before she married Dr. Giamatti. Paul's
father has written six books.
Giamatti's acting roots are in theatre, from his college days at Yale,
to regional productions (Seattle, San Diego and Williamstown,
Massachusetts) to Broadway.
Paul Giamatti trivia
- Son of Bart Giamatti, late president of Yale University, major
league baseball commissioner and nemesis of Pete Rose.
- He is the younger brother of Marcus Giamatti.
- In the 1998 remake of Doctor Dolittle, Paul portrayed a
human in charge of a talking orangutan, in the 2001 remake of
Planet of the Apes, he portrays a talking orangutan in
charge of humans.
- His father was of Italian and English descent. His mother is of Irish
descent.
- He's the voice talent for Tiger Woods headcover in a series of
Nike Golf commercials
- His life ambition is to star in a crime caper with Robert Duvall
and John Hurt. He plans on contacting the two stars with his
idea should Sideways win Best Picture at the Academy
Awards.
- Often plays roles based on real people - Private Parts,
Man on the Moon, American Splendor,
Cinderella Man and John Adams.
- Graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall
- Graduated from Yale University with a degree in English
- Graduated from the Yale University School of Drama with a master's
degree in drama
- In Sideways his character, Miles, looks at a picture of
himself as a younger man standing with a man in sunglasses. This is a
photo of Paul Giamatti with his father, A. Bartlett Giamatti.
- Has appeared in three remakes, Sabrina,
Doctor Dolittle, and Planet of the Apes.
- Was listed as a potential nominee on the both the 2003 and 2007 Razzie
Award nominating ballots. He was listed as a suggestion in the Worst
Supporting Actor category on the 2003 ballot for his performance in the
film Big Fat Liar and in the Worst (Leading) Actor
category for his performance in the film
Lady in the Water. He failed to receive either
nomination.
- Despite his character of Miles in Sideways and his passion
for pinot, Giamatti himself admits that he has very little knowledge of
wines and is not much of a fan of them.
- During the shooting of the upcoming The Hawk Is Dying,
which is mainly about his character and a Red-Tailed Hawk, he became a
raptor-enthusiast.
- Father died in 1989.
- Has one child, a boy named Samuel, born in 2001, with his wife,
Elizabeth Giamatti.
- Ex-brother-in-law of Kathryn Meisle.
- Is a Boston Red Sox fan
- Has starred in three films (Private Parts,
American Splendor and Man on the Moon that
feature characters who appear on
Late Show with David Letterman and a fourth,
Storytelling, that starred 'Conan OBrien, who
hosted "Late Night" after Letterman moved to his own show on CBS.
- Is a big fan of science-fiction.
- Lived in Seattle, WA, for a brief period after college.
- Russell Crowe stated in an interview that working with Giamatti
was one of his favorite experiences in show business.
- In his senior year at Yale University he was elected to the Skull and
Bones secret society.
- The Brooklyn Academy of Music asked Giamatti, its "2007 BAM Cinema Club
Chair", to pick films for an eight-movie series called "Paul Giamatti
Selects" and shown at the Academy in August and September 2007. His
selections indicated a taste for paranoia and "the darkest of dark
comedy", according to a writer for The New York Times. Giamatti chose:
Frenzy,
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,
Brewster McCloud, The Big Clock,
The Seventh Victim, Dawn of the Dead,
Seconds, and
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
- Lives in Brooklyn, New York.
- He and his wife, Elizabeth Giamatti, own a home in Venice,
California.
Paul Giamatti quotes
- Am I really cool? You're telling me I'm cool? Well, that's good to hear.
- I'm not a guy who has a lot of, 'I want to work with so-and-so.' I'll
take whatever work I can get.
- Well, you know, when people say stuff about you, it's always really
flattering. But does it mean anything to me? It's not really real to
me; there's no reality to it.
- You start to really lose perspective on the movie when the critical
response is as weirdly, regressively unanimous as it is. I'm such a
natural skeptic that I start thinking, 'Maybe it actually sucks.'
- It'd be disingenuous to say I don't like attention - I'm an actor for
God's sake - and it's flattering and all, but attention was never my
big goal. I just like to work and have a good time. This whole business
feels kind of intense, like a bad fit. Round peg, square hole. But
whatever, I'll take it.
- You are absolutely free to describe me as a turtle or something.
Seriously. When you profile someone, there has to be a narrative, and
my narrative just happens to be 'Who is he?', 'Oh, he's that guy' and
'He looks like a squid!' Sideways doesn't change that.
Honestly, I never wanted to be more than a good supporting actor.
Really, I enjoy it.
- Generally, when I get offered these roles they're twisted or odd. It's
never a straight-up romance. Like, the character can't speak or they
turn out to be a serial killer.
- I've always managed to find stuff to do that I enjoyed. But the offers
have definitely gotten more interesting since Sideways.
- I'd rather be in something interesting that doesn't work than something
that's a sure-fire thing but it's just kind of ... whatever.
- I've got to be the geekiest guy in the world in a lot of ways. I'm like
a zeta male.
- Acting can be a really silly thing. It's like playing dress-up.
- I don't consider myself a very interesting person. I have the mentality
of a supporting actor.
- (On getting into acting) "I guess I really started doing it in college
and I mean clearly for every actor, there's that sort of applause which
is nice and all that stuff. I could never decide what to do and as an
actor I get to be so many different things so I never had to decide to
do one thing, but be an actor and be all these different things. I used
to put a lot of philosophical weight on it, and I thought it was going
to be something that was going to kind of answer great questions of
life, which of course it is not, particularly not acting, I really did
have this sort of pretentious attitude about it, which has definitely
changed, and I don't have that anymore. I guess your relationship to it
always changes as you grow older, so now it feels like much more of a
job to me, which it actually nice. I like that, Instead of feeling it
was some sort of a mission I had."
- (On working with Russell Crowe) "Super complicated guy, but
really smart. I loved working with him and had more fun working with
him than anybody I think I have ever worked with. I play his trainer,
so everything I did was with him and I kind of loved him, even though
there was a lot about him that I can't even begin to understand and
he's a dangerously complicated guy! But from an acting point of view,
if you walk in the room and start throwing stuff at him, he just loves
it, because he seems to me like he is only really truly happy when he's
acting".
- (On doing theatre) "For a long time it was all I basically did. I regret
not doing it as much these days, and I feel like in a lot of ways I've
gotten kind of soft as an actor, not doing stage stuff. In terms of
being a better actor, it's really important."
- (On his career) "I wouldn't say that I'm aggressive in going out to find
work and stuff like that. I just sort of..if something comes along, and
it's something I like, and they want to hire me, I'll do it. I won't
just do anything."
- (On working with Woody Allen & filming
Deconstructing Harry) "He doesn't even give you the
script, he just gives you your scenes. On "Harry", I was working with
Philip Bosco (I) and we were in it a lot - that Screen Actors'
Guild scale minimum payment he gives you sure mounts up after a while -
and then we were cut right out of it".
- (On working with Jim Carrey) "You can't do the goofy stuff he
does without being a good actor. Exciting to work with, but hard. You
gotta find a way to work with him. He's so frickin' intense all the
time that you gotta get a break from it once in a while. Not that he's
always 'on', he's just an intense guy. Everything is just burning away
inside of him. I dunno how he gets through the day. Another really
smart guy, too".
- (On working with M. Night Shyamalan "I mean, he's definitely got
his own thing going on. He's got his own way of shooting things, which
is great for actors because he doesn't shoot the hell out of things.
He's got a very definite visual vocabulary for stuff like that. He's
got a real control over it because he writes it, but I found the
biggest difference with him is that the crew and everyone else feel
relaxed all the time. It's like he's the host of the big party all the
time. I would work with him again because he's incredibly astute about
making everybody feel important and part of the process".
- (On supporting roles) "I think you're given more license to have fun, in
a way. You're supposed to be more vivid, your job is to be more
eccentric. I think I just like it better. There's something about
working in a smaller space that I'm more temperamentally suited to."
- I think one of the great things about acting is the instant
gratification: you just get up and start being a part of the story. The
immediacy is something you get really addicted to.
- (On how he prepares for a part) "I usually just read the script a lot.
And that's one thing I do, I just read the script over and over and
over again. That helps me."
- Growing up I didn't know where I was headed, except to the grave or
maybe to the gutter. I went through wanting to do a lot of things, but
acting wasn't one of them. I didn't really know what I was going to do
until after my father died. Going into acting was as much a surprise to
me as to anyone else, and I was even more surprised to find that I
could make a living doing it.
- I just sort of want to see how this movie thing plays out.
- During his 2008 Emmy acceptance speech as Best Actor in a Miniseries or
Movie in John Adams: I'm living proof, kids at home
watching, that anybody can play the president.
- [2009 - On watching himself on film] I definitely have a tendency to
only see the blemishes of things, and see lots of things about my
acting that I don't like. I think I've gotten a little easier on
myself, or at least a little more usefully critical of myself. I think
before, I just couldn't take looking at myself at all. I don't know.
I'm happy people see something I don't see. I've very critical of
myself, and film has been an adjustment for me. I'm glad; it's a
challenge in some ways. Certainly not boring. But it's always been hard
for me to feel like I get it, get how to act on film. I feel like I'm
gradually getting it.
- [On if filming movies in exotic locations is appealing to him] Big part
of it for me, yeah. Always been a big part of it, going to some weird
city. Now, actors get so familiarized with Eastern Europe. [Laughs.] I
never imagined I'd get as familiar with Budapest and Prague and places
like that in my life. But I definitely like that part of it.
- [On filming The Last Station in Russia] It was great. I
was only there for about 10 days. I wish I could have been there
longer. But all the Russian actors - and there's a number of them in
the movie - prepared us for it to be this terrifying sinkhole of vice
and infamy and mobsters. Like we'd all end up in the trunk of a car,
strangled with barbed wire. And it didn't end up being like that at
all. They were really nice people. And it's nice shooting a movie in a
place like that, because you really get to see the city in a way you
wouldn't otherwise. You don't go to the touristy places. You go to the
places where people are actually living. And in a city like that [St.
Petersburg], it's pretty intense. People are living in pretty ghastly
ways in parts of that city.
- [On his role in Sideways] That was a hard part, and I've
never felt like I actually got that part right. I always felt like I
was too serious or something. I don't really know how to play jokes as
jokes; it's easier for me to play all the comedy deadpan. I had a hard
time doing that part. It's interesting to use the metaphor of the
soul-storage thing. If I'm going to define myself as an actor in some
way, I'm more of the outside-in kind of actor than the inside-out. It's
often easier for me if I have an accent or an eye patch or something,
you know? A funny walk - if I have no legs or something? Something like
that is easier for me to hook on to. I didn't have that with that part,
and I had to find my way into it. The wine stuff, actually, was what I
started to use. The behaviorism's of that stuff. What do they call
them? Oenophiles? That was sort of the "in" with that. So in some ways,
yeah. I had to find the right soul for that guy, I guess. It wasn't an
easy part. None of them are, but that one especially.