2009 Excellence in Acting Award

Alessandro Nivola

Alessandro Nivola's first professional leading role earned him a Drama Desk Award Nomination for his performance opposite Helen Mirren on Broadway in Turgenev's A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY. The following year he drew critical acclaim and a Blockbuster Award Nomination for playing Nicolas Cage's paranoid genius younger brother in John Woo's FACE/OFF. A series of roles in English movies followed, establishing him as one of the few Americans capable of playing British characters from all regions and classes. He starred as a Hastings fisherman opposite Rachel Weisz in Michael Winterbottom's I WANT YOU, played Henry Crawford in the Patricia Rozema adaptation of Jane Austen's MANSFIELD PARK, and a singing/dancing King Ferdinand of Navarre in Kenneth Brannagh's musical film of Shakespeare's LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. Back in the U.S. he starred opposite Reese Witherspoon in BEST LAID PLANS, and played leading roles in JURASSIC PARK 3, and Mike Figgis' TIME CODE. He returned to the theater to play Orlando to Gwyneth Paltrow's Rosalind in AS YOU LIKE IT at Williamstown, before being reunited with Helen Mirren in the film THE CLEARING, this time playing her son rather than her lover as he had on stage. He earned an Independent Spirit Award Nomination for his performance as the rock singer Ian McNight in Lisa Cholodenko's LAUREL CANYON where he recorded the character's songs himself prompting Vogue magazine to write, "he sings Brit pop well enough to get a record deal." In 2006, he starred in JUNEBUG opposite Amy Adams, and in the Sundance audience award winner GRACE IS GONE opposite John Cusack, Recent films include Ridley Scott's mini-series THE COMPANY, the Lionsgate thriller THE EYE opposite Jessica Alba, and THE GIRL IN THE PARK opposite Sigourney Weaver and Kate Bosworth.

At the 2008 Toronto Film Festival, Alessandro headlined two upcoming films: FIVE DOLLARS A DAY, a father-son road movie opposite Christopher Walken, and WHO DO YOU LOVE?, a bio pic about the life of Chess Records founder Leonard Chess in which he plays Leonard.

Alessandro will next be seen as Boy Capel opposite Audrey Tautou in COCO AVANT CHANEL, a film about the early life of Coco Chanel, and in HOWL about the obscenity trial over the famous Alan Ginsberg poem of the same title.

He is a graduate of Yale University with a BA in English.

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