Michael Imperioli

Michael Imperioli (born March 26, 1966) is an American actor, writer and director best known for his role as Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2004. He also appeared in the TV drama series Law & Order as NYPD Detective Nick Falco. Imperioli spent the 2008-2009 television season as Detective Ray Carling in the US version of Life on Mars. He was starring as Detective Louis Fitch in the ABC police drama Detroit 1-8-7 until its cancellation. He wrote and directed his first feature film, The Hungry Ghosts, in 2008. In 2015, he starred in Mad Dogs, a dark-comic thriller television series available for viewing on Amazon's Amazon Prime subscription service in the U.S and on Shomi in Canada.

Early life
Imperioli was born in Mount Vernon, New York into an Italian-American family, with ancestors from Lazio and Sicily. He is the son of Dan Imperioli, a bus driver and amateur actor and Claire Imperioli, an amateur actress.

Career


Imperioli has been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards as well as for five Emmy Awards for his work as Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos; he won one Emmy, for the show's fifth season in 2004.

In addition to his role on The Sopranos, Imperioli has appeared in a number of films, including Goodfellas, Jungle Fever, Bad Boys, Malcolm X, The Basketball Diaries, Clockers, Dead Presidents, Girl 6, My Baby's Daddy, Lean on Me, I Shot Andy Warhol, Last Man Standing, Shark Tale, High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story, and Summer of Sam, which he also co-wrote and co-produced. He also wrote a number of episodes for The Sopranos.

He served as artistic director of Studio Dante, an Off-Broadway theater he formed with his wife. He is also the lead singer/guitarist for a rock band named La Dolce Vita. He makes a brief appearance in the video for the 1983 hit 'Shiny Shiny' by British performance group Haysi Fantayzee.

Imperioli is an active member of The Jazz Foundation of America and co-hosted their May 2009 annual benefit concert, "A Great Night in Harlem", at the Apollo Theater, which celebrated the foundation's 20th anniversary.

He was a guest on episode MB2E08 ("San Giuseppe") of Mario Batali's Food Network television show Molto Mario.

In 2010, Imperioli was signed on to play the lead in the ABC TV show Detroit 1-8-7.

Working with the writer Gabriele Tinti, he wrote the text Pride for Tinti's book New York Shots, and participated in a reading of The Way of the Cross at the Queens Museum of Art in 2011.

He won the "Tournament of Stars" competition on the cooking show Chopped in 2014, sending $50,000 to his designated charity the Pureland Project, an organization which builds and maintains schools in rural Tibet. In 2016, he guest starred as the angel Uriel on the Fox show Lucifer.

Personal life
Imperioli has been married to Victoria Chlebowski since 1995, lives in Santa Barbara, California, and has three children. He and his family are avid practitioners of Tae Kwon Do.