By VICTORIA SHOULDIS For the Monitor
October 09, 2008 - 7:42 am
Joe Pantoliano - that’s Joey Pants to his friends and everyone who could be a friend, and that includes you - ended up in pieces, quite literally, in one of his most famous roles, the gleeful psychopath Ralphie Cifaretto on The Sopranos.
With his intense yet approachable acting style, Pantoliano has made a strong career for himself in the often fickle world of Hollywood, imbibing his characters - from an early role as the evil pimp Guido in Risky Business to the traitorous Cypher in The Matrix - with a unique flavor that has made him an instantly familiar face to almost any movie or television fan.
Pantoliano also struggles with a mental illness.
But while many actors are fearful of stigma and ignorance, Pantoliano has chosen not to keep himself or his illness in the shadows. Indeed he has most publicly embraced his struggles with chronic major depression, using a once uncomfortably uncontrolled rage and channeling it into a deep, committed advocacy: empathy for those who struggle with brain disease, and education for those who view any sort of mental struggle through a prism of stereotypical, pulp movie stigma.
Back on TV, the actor works on the other side of the law as detective Ray Carling on the new series based on the BBC version.
By PAMELA HARLAND, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Published 10/9/2008
So what brought THE SOPRANOS star Michael Imperioli back from the graveyard of TV shows come and gone? Answer - LIFE ON MARS, a show about present day detective Sam Tyler (Jason O’Mara) who, while in pursuit of a criminal, crashes his car only to find himself suddenly transferred back to the year 1973, with car and garb retro as well.
Imperioli plays the tough and rugged man’s man detective Ray Carling who is lieutenant’s (Harvey Keitel) pet at their New York police station. Now with the addition of Sam Tyler to the precinct, Imperioli’s character finds himself in competition for Keitel’s approval.
So why now? What about this particular script got Imperioli’s attention when he had been offered numerous pilots?
“Something like THE SOPRANOS that, you know, fulfills your creative drive for such a long period of time and challenges you, is a hard act to follow,” says the 42-year-old Imperioli. “If I’m going to commit to something that hopefully is going to be on for a long time, you know, you want something juicy and you want something different. The idea of doing New York detectives in 1973 really, really appealed to me.”
