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On the Lam
By Joyce J. Persico
Times of Trenton

Star Ledger & NJ Online - February 7, 2000
www.nj.com/sopranos/

He doesn't want anyone to know where he lives -- certainly not the city. Too many reporters are already calling. And he's not supposed to be revealing too much, either. All this from a guy who, eight weeks ago, still had a listed phone number.

"Just say `North Jersey,' " suggests Morris County resident Federico Castelluccio, who tonight stands a chance of becoming a household name.

Presently, the name doesn't exactly roll off the lips of an American television fan, but neither did the name Gandolfini a year ago, when a little-known actor named James Gandolfini made his debut on the HBO series "The Sopranos."

Tonight it's 35-year-old Castelluccio's turn to debut on "The Sopranos" in as role that will last all season, maybe longer.

Just don't count on the Naples, Italy-born actor to tell you any more than that. He'll even deny what has already been printed about the role in the press -- that he plays a hit man named Furio from Italy.

"Let's just say it will be funny when you hear what I play, considering where I was born and everything," the actor suggests in perfect English.

Tonight's episode, titled "Commendatori," introduces Furio as a "valuable new lieutenant" that Tony Soprano brings back from Italy as an "enforcer," according to HBO.

"I did three auditions in New York. They put me on tape. My agent called me and told me they would show it to (`The Sopranos') producers. So I read for (series creator) David Chase and other producers. They called me back in at the beginning of June. Then July. After that," recalls Castelluccio, "I read with Gandolfini, the consummate actor. I've revered him for years. I saw him on stage in 'A Streetcar Named Desire,' in the movie 'Night Falls on Manhattan.'"

It was a Friday night and Castelluccio "could feel the room change from being tense to now they're listening." Sensing it went well, the actor talked to casting agent Georgianne Walken who told him to go home and relax because "nothing is 100 percent."

Later, one of the writers told Castelluccio he looked as if he had walked off the written page.

Beginning tonight, he'll have a role that continues to the season's final episode. Beyond that, Castelluccio isn't saying.

"I've been living here since my family brought me over when I was 4," Castelluccio explains. "My mother's family was already here. I was raised in Paterson. I've been living in New Jersey practically my whole life."

The youngest of four children (one girl, three boys) born to the middle class family of Theresa and Leonzio Castelluccio, the actor who is also an accomplished painter remembers a childhood neighborhood in Paterson where "you didn't even have to speak English to get along. They spoke every other language. I spoke nothing but Italian until I was 5.

"New York's my second home," says the bilingual bachelor whose Italian-born parents live in New Jersey and still don't speak English well. Their dark-haired, blue-eyed son, however, spews mellifluous Italian at the drop of a hat and reverts to English without taking a breath.

"I only just became an American citizen," admits Castelluccio, who visited Asbury Park and Wildwood in the summer just like any other Jersey native. He's even met the state's unofficial favorite rock star, Bruce Springsteen, at film screenings.

"My first profession is being a painter. I only took up acting 12 years ago. TV and, mostly, stage."

Last February, American Artist magazine profiled Castelluccio in a four-page spread, noting his "modernist approach, which results in sparse and rigid versions of reality."

Working from one of his two New Jersey studios, he does commissioned portraits and his paintings are part of such public collections as Warner Lambert Industries and the Gillette Corporation. He's even taught painting in both high school and private classes.

A "modern realist," he supplied his paintings as backdrop for an upcoming Danny Aiello movie about a mobster who paints called "Eighteen Shades of Dust."

"From high school, I went to the School of Visual Arts in New York on a four-year scholarship. I got my BFA there and the last year I was there, I started studying acting."

The scholarship came in 1982, the same year Castelluccio created a portrait of the late comedian George Burns while working part time at the Paterson News. A reporter who was interviewing Burns gave him the portrait.

After graduation in 1986, Castelluccio worked with acting coaches in New York and, while he continued to paint, he was determined to be an actor.

He's appeared in New Jersey regional theater, including a summer at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, and performances at the Playwrights Theatre in Madison and Red Bank's former Warren K. Woods Theatre.

Castelluccio's movie debut was something less than spectacular. Watching the news one day, he saw a report on the filming of Paul Hogan's "Crocodile Dundee II" in Manhattan, noted the name of the television reporter, called her and asked for the casting director's name. The next day, he called the casting office to see if Ricardo Bertoni was in, wandered over and used the reporter's name as a reference.

Bertoni looked at the name Castelluccio and asked him to say something in Italian.

"Blah, blah, blah," Castelluccio recalls, "I talked to him in Italian. He said come back next Tuesday."

Castelluccio did and got work as an extra for a scene in which Hogan recruits a bunch of guys to save co-star Linda Kozlowski from a group of drug dealers.

"They told us not to look at the camera, but I knew the camera would be on Linda, so when they started shooting, I turned around and you can see me," he explains.

The casting agent told Castelluccio not to bother with work as an extra -- he was leading man material. New York soap operas followed, including appearances on "Guiding Light" and "As the World Turns."

The actor doesn't know what will become of him after audiences see him in "The Sopranos," but he is aware of the criticism aimed at the show by some for its portraits of Italian-Americans.

"The mob was always looked up to in certain circles," says Castelluccio. "When they kill each other, they kill horrible people.

"From an actor's standpoint, (playing a mobster) it's a job. But I can see where other people's concerns are. We address those issues in these shows. When Tony (Soprano, a mob boss) tells his daughter he didn't have many options, Meadow (the daughter) says, `Did Mario Cuomo have an option?'

"I just know when I saw the first trailer for `The Sopranos' last year, I thought, `I grew up with people like that.' I just knew I had to be a part of it, somehow."

Now Castelluccio has gotten his wish.