Since the beginning of 2017 Giovanni Ribisi has been flickering on the screens of Amazon Prime with the false identity of his former cellmate as “Sneaky Pete”, whose real name is Marius Josipovic.
In the exciting and critically acclaimed series, the swindler not only takes on “Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston, but also quickly realizes how difficult it is to live two different lives at the same time.
The life of “Sneaky Pete” leading actor Antonino Giovanni Ribisi, however, has been going in one direction since childhood, namely in the direction of acting.
His mother Gay Ribisi was an agent for actors, so son Giovanni and his sisters Marissa and Gina came into contact with the show business early on.
Early Life
Giovanni Ribisi was born in Los Angeles in 1974 in a family of artists of Italian origins: the mother is a film producer and the father is a musician.
Ribisi’s career is certainly not studded with huge successes, although he is undoubtedly a very smart and very versatile actor.
He played roles completely different from each other with great skills, always managing to make them extremely credible.
From a very young age he appeared in many television commercials and in very successful TV series such as: “X-Files”, “Chicago Hope”, “At the edge of reality”, “Hitchhiking to the sky”.
But 1994 is the important year, as the part of Phoebe’s slightly touched brother arrives in “Friends”. Giovanni starts to get noticed and so he decides to attend an acting course at the Beverly Hills Playhouse.
The success of “Friends” brought him his first film role, in 1995, in the horror “Mind Ripper / The Outpost” by Joe Gayton, produced by Wes Craven.
In the following years there will be several films that will see him acting, three only in 2000: Ben Younger’s “1 km from Wall Street”; Dominic Sena’s “Out in 60 Seconds”, in which he stars alongside Nicolas Cage, and Sam Raimi’s “The Gift” with Cate Blanchett.
In 2002 he was again opposite Cate Blanchett in Tom Tykwer’s “Heaven” before participating in Anthony Minghella’s “Return to Could Mountain” (2003).
Sofia Coppola wants it for her second work, the beautiful “Lost in Translation” of 2003. In the following years she participates in several not very relevant feature films, except perhaps “Basic” (2003) by John McTiernan with John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson.
In 2007 he returned to the genre of his debut, the TV series, interpreting some episodes of the famous “My name is Earl”. He does not abandon the big screen, in fact he is seen as a drug dealer in Kevin Connolly’s “Gardener of Eden” (2007) and in those of a very good hacker in James Foley’s “Perfect Stranger” (2007).
He also works for Michael Mann with Johnny Depp in the film “Public Enemies” (2009); also in 2009 he is in the cast of the James Cameron colossal “Avatar” while in 2010 he is one of the protagonists of “Middle Men” directed by George Gallo.
In 2011 he is engaged in “The Rum Diary” with Johnny Deep and Aaron Eckhart. Giovanni Ribisi is also a musician and we saw him unfortunate protagonist of the music video “Crystal Ball” by Keane, shot by Giuseppe Capotondi.
Together with his twin sister Marissa, he is part of Scientology, like many of his colleagues. In 2012 Ribisi returns to the big screen with “Ted” which has a great success at the box office and with “Gangster Squad” (2013) by Ruben Ruben Fleischer.
In 2014 he is in the cast of the film “A million ways to die in the West” by Seth MacFarlane, and “Selma – The road to freedom” by Ava DuVernay, a re-enactment of the marches from Selma to Montgomery, which since 1965 marked the the start of the civil rights revolt in the United States.
Career Path
Antonino Giovanni Ribisi was born in Los Angeles in 1974, son of Albert Anthony Ribisi, keyboard player in the band of People! And Gay Landrum, agent of actors and writers.
He has two sisters: his twin sister Marissa, also an actress, married to the famous singer Beck and Gina, less than two years old, voice actress.
Born into an entertainment family and raised as a member of Scientology (a faith he is convinced of and who he shares with Marissa and Beck), Giovanni began a career as a child that now has more than 40 films and 25 TV shows.
At 10 he appears – with the name of Vonni Ribisi – in two episodes of the series Autostop per il cielo. Followed by participations in shows such as The Twilight Zone and Sidekick and a longer commitment in Still the Beaver.
He soon became a familiar face to television viewers, who throughout the eighties and nineties saw him grow in popular shows such as Married with children, My two dads, Blossom, The Wonder Years, Il commissario Scali, Walker Texas Rangers, Chicago Hope and X-Files.
His film debut took place in 1996, when he starred in Josh and Jonas Pate’s film The Grave, a noir in competition at Cattolica’s MystFest. In the same year, Chad, the drummer who breaks his arm, in Colin Hanks’ first feature, Music Graffiti.
On television from 1995 to 2003 he played the role of Frank Buffay Jr., Phoebe’s half-brother, in the hugely popular sitcom Friends, the springboard for future Hollywood stars.
The following year, he is the husband photographer who leaves his wife Scarlett Johansson at the hotel in Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, for whose first film, The Garden of the Suicidal Virgins, had been the narrating voice.
After Friends’s experience, in 2003 he starred in Return to Cold Mountain, followed by roles in the remake of The Flight of the Phoenix (2004) and in The Big White (2005), where he is the insurance agent who doubts Robin’s crime Williams.
In 2005 he began a new television adventure that will last until 2010: he is Ralph Mariano, ex accomplice and friend of the protagonist, in the series My Name is Earl.
In theaters she appears in Gardener of Eden (2007) and in Michael Mann’s Public Enemy with Johnny Depp, while she has a much more important role in James Cameron’s blockbuster fantasy, Avatar (2009).
He makes his computer graphic studies profitable, becoming, during the production of the film, partner of the Stereo 2 studio which converts 2D images into stereoscopic images and helps the company, unbeknownst to the director, to work on some of the images of the film.
Two years later he finds Johnny Depp on the set of The Rum Diary, where the disputed journalist Moburg is. In 2012 he is the stalker obsessed with the teddy bear starring in Ted, a bizarre part that he plays with great fun.
Seth MacFarlane calls him back two years later for A Million Ways to Die in the West. He also participated in Gangster Squad in 2013, the year in which he resumed the path of serial TV with the role of Walter Whittemore in Dads.
In the 2015 Oscar-nominated film Selma is Lee C. White, adviser to President Johnson. Restless on the private front, Giovanni Ribisi was married from 1997 to 2001 with the actress Mariah O’Brien who gave him his daughter Lucia, he lived with the rock singer Cat Power from 2007 to 2012 and on June 6, 2012 he remarried with model Agyness Deyn, from whom she filed for divorce in January 2015.
Personal life
Little Giovanni in particular was impressed by the hustle and bustle of the film business and begged his parents until they allowed him to try his luck as an actor. With success! Ribisi took on his first roles as a child in American series such as “A Terribly Nice Family”, “Wonderful Years” and “The X-Files – The FBI’s Sinister Cases”.
As a 21-year-old, Giovanni Ribisi had already had a lot of experience in front of the camera and was ready for his cinema debut.
He appeared in a supporting role in Wes Craven’s horror flick “Mindripper”, but it was supposed to be a different role that made the aspiring mimes known in the coming years.
From 1995 to 2003, Ribisi played Frank Buffay Jr., the slightly crazy brother of Phoebe (played by Lisa Kudrow) in the popular series “Friends”.
Even though Giovanni Ribisi was certainly not rich with his role in “Friends”, he was able to draw Hollywood filmmakers’ attention with his screen presence.
After a few small roles in the film, among others in the youth drama “subUrbia – Sixpacks, Sex + Supermarkets”, Ribisi made his big breakthrough as an actor with his role in Steven Spielberg’s war film “The Soldier James Ryan” in the late 1990s.
The successful star, whose German voice actor Gerrit Schmidt-Foß also lends his voice to Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Renner, Jim Parsons and James van der Beek, not only got off to a good professional start, the mime also seems to have a stone on the board for women , In 1997 he gave the actress Mariah O’Brien the yes word, the two had their daughter Lucia in the same year.
Despite family happiness, this marriage lasted only four years. The next woman on Giovanni Ribisi’s side was the musician Cat Power, but only for five years. No reason for Ribisi to stop believing in love.
He even ventured into the port of marriage one more time: The lucky girl on the second attempt was the model Agyness Deyn. What a surprise! It wasn’t even known that the Ribise and Deyn were even a couple before the secret wedding in 2012 came to light.
But Ribisi seems to be out of luck in love. Marriage number two with Agyness Deyn also failed after only three years together.
Quick summary
Full name: Antonino Giovanni Ribisi
Date of birth: December 17, 1974
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Age: 45
Profession: Actor
Height: 1.71 m
Weight: 70 kg
Net Worth: 25$ million