Edoardo Ballerini

Edoardo Ballerini (born March 20, 1970) is an Italian-American actor, writer, director and film producer. He is best known for his work on screen as junkie Corky Caporale in The Sopranos (2006–2007), Ignatius D'Alessio in Boardwalk Empire, a hotheaded chef in the indie hit Dinner Rush (2001), and an NFL businessman in the blockbuster Romeo Must Die (2000). He has appeared in numerous films and television series, from I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) to the Omphalos (2013).

His directorial debut, Good Night Valentino, premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.[1] Ballerini starred in the film as silent film idol Rudolph Valentino.

Early life and education
Ballerini was born to an Italian father, the poet Luigi Ballerini, and an American mother, the writer Julia Ballerini. He grew up between New York City and Milan, Italy. He is a dual citizen, and bilingual. His early schooling took place in New York, at P.S. 41 and later Friends Seminary, before he left home at age 14 for boarding school. From there, he attended Wesleyan University. The summer following his graduation, Ballerini was given a scholarship to study Latin in Rome. In Italy, he discovered a group of ex-pat actors who were forming a theater company. He joined the troupe. The following fall he attended regular acting classes in New York at The Lee Strasberg Theater Institute. He later became an observer at The Actor's Studio.

Career
Ballerini's first professional role was as an autistic teenager on Law & Order (1995). Two years later, he starred in the John Leguizamo comedy The Pest(1997) and, after that, appeared in Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco (1998) and Amos Kollek's Sue (1998).

Ballerini was cast as the "star chef" in Bob Giraldi's Dinner Rush (2001) opposite Danny Aiello. The film grossed only $638,227[2]but received largely positive reviews.[3] Internationally, the film did much better and broke into the top ten in box office receipts in Japan in 2003.[citation needed]

The same year, Ballerini wrote, directed and starred in a short film about 1920's film icon Rudolph Valentino. The film premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and was entered into the permanent archive at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciencesin Los Angeles. The film was also presented at the National Museum of Cinema in Turin, Italy in 2009 as part of a Valentino retrospective.[4] Emily Leider, in her biography Dark Lover (Farrar, Strouss & Giroux, 2003),[5] wrote that Ballerini "infuses his [Valentino] with exactly the right mix of pride, elegance, grace and anguish... on screen, Ballerini's resemblance to Valentino is uncanny."

Ballerini was also cast as another famous 1920's Italian, the anarchist and labor leader Carlo Tresca, in No God, No Master (2011).

Theater
Ballerini made his first professional appearance on stage as a child in 1980 at Theater for the New City, New York, in Mario Prosperi's "Uncle Mario." He subsequently joined the Italian Commedia dell'arte troupe[6] for several performances. Stage credits as an adult include Stefanie Zadravec's "Honey Brown Eyes" (Theater Row), John Jesurun's "Chang in a Void Moon" (The Kitchen), "The End of Cinematics" (St. Ann's Space), "Crossroads" (The Henry Street Settlement), and several pieces in "The Eugene O'Neill Project" (The Actors Studio, The Eugene O'Neill Center).

Audiobooks
Ballerini is a frequent narrator of audiobooks. He received an "Earphones" Awards from Audiofile Magazine for his recordings of Stephen Greenblatt's National Book Award-winning The Swerve, Paul Farmer's Haiti: After the Earthquake (with Meryl Streep and Eric Conger), and Kristopher Jansma's The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards.[7]

Personal life
Ballerini moved to Los Angeles in 2000 before eventually returning to New York, where he continues his career.