Alessandro Nivola Biography

Alessandro Nivola was born in Boston, Massachusetts to an artist mother and academic father. He has one younger brother and both boys attended Yale University. Alessandro graduated in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature.

In 1995, Alessandro made his Broadway debut opposite Helen Mirren in A Month in the Country, which earned him his first Drama Desk Award nomination. Success followed in 1997 when Alessandro made his breakthrough performance in the feature film Face/Off (1997) alongside Nicolas Cage. This performance earned him a nomination for Favorite Supporting Actor at the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards.

In the years following, Alessandro was featured in Mansfield Park (1999), Love's Labour's Lost (2000), and the blockbuster Jurassic Park III (2001). He also starred in the drama Laurel Canyon (2001) alongside Frances McDormand and Christian Bale — for which he earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination — and in Junebug (2005) with Amy Adams.

Alessandro's career only picked up from there, and he made high-profile appearances in films throughout the rest of the decade. During that same period, he also earned a lead role on the Cold War-set serial The Company (2007) alongside Chris O'Donnell and Michael Keaton. At the turn of the decade, Alessandro appeared in Ginger & Rosa (2012) and the Academy Award-winning film American Hustle (2013). The latter, which also starred Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, and Christian Bale, collected numerous awards. Along with his co-stars. Alessandro was awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award for best ensemble. He was recognized once again for his work in Selma (2014). The cast won the Best Ensemble award at the Black Film Critics Circle Awards in 2014.

Alessandro starred in 2014's The Elephant Man on Broadway opposite Bradley Cooper. For his performance, he was nominated for the 2015 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.

More recently, Alessandro appeared in Disobedience (2017), for which he won Best Supporting Actor at the British Independent Film Awards, the television biopic The Wizard of Lies (2017), and the films The Art of Self Defense (2019) and The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019). In 2021, he booked the leading role of Dickie Moltisanti in The Sopranos (1999-2007) prequel film The Many Saints of Newark (2021).

Alessandro married British actress/producer Emily Mortimer in 2003. They have two children together and live in Brooklyn, New York.

Photo by Sam Nivola.

Filmography:

The Many Saints of Newark (2021)
With/In: Volume 2 (2021)
The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019)
The Art of Self-Defence (2019)
Weightless (2017)
Disobedience (2017)
You Were Never Really Here (2017)
One Percent More Humid (2017)
Day Out of Days (2015)
Selma (2014)
A Most Violent Year (2014)
American Hustle (2013)
Devil’s Know (2013)
Ginger & Rosa (2012)
Janie Jones (2010)
Howl (2010)
Coco Before Chanel (2009)
Who Do You Love (2008)
$5 a Day (2008)
The Eye (2008)
The Girl in the Park (2007)
Goal II: Living the Dream (2007)
Grace is Gone (2007)
Goal! The Dream Begins (2005)
Turning Green (2005)
The Sisters (2005)
Junebug (2005)
The Clearing (2004)
Carolina (2003)
Laurel Canyon (2002)
Jurassic Park III (2001)
Timecode (2000)
Love’s Labour’s Lost (2000)
Mansfield Park (1999)
Best Laid Plans (1999)
Reach the Rock (1998)
I Want You (1998)
Face/Off (1997)
Inventing the Abbotts (1997)