Ask AP: Joey Pantoliano

Celebrities, Celebrity Q&A, People
on November 23, 2008

What can you tell me about the actor who plays gangster Ralph Cifaretto on The Sopranos? He’s so good at being bad! I know I’ve seen him before.

—Dee Kinders, Ada, Okla.

Joey Pantoliano, 57, had nose-reduction surgery after seeing himself in his breakthrough role in the 1983 hit movie Risky Business. “I told the doctor I didn’t want to play bad guys the rest of my life,” he says. “I wound up playing bad guys with smaller noses.” His resume includes memorable roles in Running Scared, Midnight Run, The Matrix, La Bamba and the award-winning TV series The Sopranos. Pantoliano is finishing up a documentary, Hope’s Messengers, that he hopes will remove the stigma attached to brain disease. “I’m working to get our brain the same rights as our gall bladder, liver and heart,” he says. The father of four lives in Connecticut with his wife of 14 years, Nancy.