John Ventimiglia Is a New York-based character actor who has built his career playing thugs, guards, cops, and other tough guys in television and movies. He guest starred on crime dramas like Law & Order and NYPD Blue until 1999, when he joined the cast of The Sopranos as Artie Bucco, the proprietor of the Nuovo Vesuvio restaurant and close personal friend of Tony Soprano. His film career has been more low-key, mostly made up of small roles in independent dramas. In 1995, he played the stable father Andrew in Rebecca Miller’s directorial debut, Angela. The next year, he had brief parts in four popular independent films: I Shot Andy Warhol, Girls Town, Trees Lounge and The Funeral. He then co-starred in the crime comedy On the Run, opposite fellow Sopranos cast member Michael Imperioli and appeared in King of the World, the made-for-TV movie about Muhammad Ali. In 2002, he joined up with several other New York actors and writers for DV Workshop, a feature film collection of 24 short films for the Internet.
When Joyce Johnson was trying to cast the role of Jack Kerouac for her play, Door Wide Open, she auditioned scores of actors for the part. “We had this procession of totally hopeless people come in to try to play Jack. John Ventimiglia came at the very end of the audition. We were sitting around in despair. And then this guy read, and I thought Jack was in the room. Phrasing, timing, even to body language—it was uncanny.” John and David Amram frequently perform together at festivals and concerts paying musical and oral homage to Kerouac.
