You may think you do not know much about Stanley Tucci, and you are probably correct in that assumption. However, you are undoubtedly familiar with his filmography in some capacity.
The 59-year-old Italian-American New York native has well over 100 acting credits in his 35-year career, most notably his Academy Award-nominated role as the villain of The Lovely Bones, as the creator of a hero in Captain America: The First Avenger, and perhaps his most striking role to date, Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games series. However, there is more to the multi-award-winning Stanley Tucci than the various characters he plays, onscreen, onstage, or in the studio recording an audiobook - such as his Grammy-nominated narration of the book that inspired Shrek.
Care to learn about the versatile artist beyond the world of fiction? Come on and join the Tucci Gang to find out more…
Stanley Tucci Gave Ving Rhames His Nickname
After taking up an interest in acting in high school, Stanley Tucci went on to attend acting classes at the State University of New York's Conservatory of Theater Arts in Purchase in the late 1970s. The actor shares this same alma mater with several well-known performers, including Parker Posey, Wesley Snipes, and Ving Rhames - the last of which Tucci knew personally.
Stanley Tucci and the future Golden Globe-winner and star of Pulp Fiction and the Mission: Impossible franchise (the only actor other than Tom Cruise to appear in all current installments) were roommates at S.U.N.Y. Purchase, during which Tucci gave the man born Irving Rhames the nickname that would later become his stage name. In an interview with The Daily Beast, he joked that it is “an outrage” he does not receive royalties whenever someone calls his old friend “Ving.”
Stanley Tucci Has Also Been A Restauranteur
Stanley Tucci got his career behind the camera off the ground in 1996 as the co-director and co-writer of Big Night, about two brothers struggling to save their Italian eatery in 1950s New Jersey. Other than the central theme of a business hanging by a thread, the film must have been his way of living out a fantasy which eventually became a reality.
In the 2000s, Stanley Tucci helped develop the Finch Tavern, a restaurant that specialized in Italian cuisine in Croton Falls, New York. The place has since closed, but, as he told Cigar Aficionado in 2013, he still dreams obsessively of being a part of the dining industry. Fortunately, he has still found ways to express his gastronomic interests to the world.
Stanley Tucci Has Revealed His Culinary Skills In Two Cookbooks
It should come as no surprise from the previously mentioned bit of trivia that Stanley Tucci, in addition to his abilities on a film or TV set, is an impeccable talent in the kitchen as well. The actor has made more than a hobby out of cooking by sharing his culinary secrets in two books.
In 2012, Simon & Schuster released The Tucci Cookbook, Stanley Tucci’s own unveiling of more than 200 recipes for Italian food that have existed in his own family for years. He would follow that up in 2014 with yet another book called The Tucci Table: Cooking with Family and Friends, which is an offering of more progressive culinary specialties that he has developed in his own home by combining the traditions of his own heritage with that of his co-author: his wife, Felicity Blunt. If you do not recognize who she is, you have probably, at least, heard of her sister.
Stanley Tucci Is Emily Blunt’s Brother-In-Law
A Quiet Place star Emily Blunt became friends with Stanley Tucci after meeting him on the set of The Devil Wears Prada, but other than both starring in post-apocalyptic films about monsters that hunt on sound, they relate even deeper to each other than that. At her wedding to John Krasinski at George Clooney’s home at Lake Como in Italy, Blunt introduced Tucci to her sister, Felicity Blunt. Bonding over a shared interest in cooking food and British culture, the pair fell in love and were wed in 2012 and have had two children together since.
Stanley Tucci’s marriage to Felicity Blunt, who works as a literary agent, is actually his second, having met her two years after his previous wife of 14 years, social worker Kate Tucci (whom he had three children with), succumbed to breast cancer in 2009. However, the actor has continued to have a comfortable, endearing existence with Blunt, with whom he now resides in London. In fact, if not for his wife, he may not have accepted one of the most popular and recognizable roles of his career.
Caesar Flickerman's Teeth In The Hunger Games Were Stanley Tucci's Idea
When director Gary Ross offered his longtime friend Stanley Tucci a role in his adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ post-apocalyptic young adult novel The Hunger Games, it was the first time that the actor had ever heard of the massively popular book, the first of a trilogy, before. However, after reading the script, becoming familiar with the original source material, and some additional nudging from his literary agent then-fiancée, Felicity Blunt, he took the part. In fact, Tucci got to be instrumental in creating the onscreen counterpart of the character he had been chosen to play.
As he revealed in a red carpet interview with The Hollywood Reporter at the premiere of The Hunger Games, Stanley Tucci was “very, very involved” in developing the look of Caesar Flickerman, the Capital’s top media personality known for his coverage of the deadly annual sporting event. While the elaborate blue hair, for instance, was a product the original author’s mind, Tucci suggested giving Flickerman an inhumanly tan complexion and a set of teeth clearly manufactured for the camera, among other characteristics that eventually made it into the final picture. He would go on to reprise the role in the 2012 blockbuster’s three hit follow-ups.
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