My family isn't really Italian. We're more like Olive Garden Italian.
I'm very proud of being Italian-American, but people don't realize that the mafia is just this aberration. The real community is built on the working man, the guy who's the cop, the fireman, the truck driver, the bus driver.
If you're an actor from New York, and you're Italian-American, you grow up hoping Marty Scorsese knows your name at some point before you die.
Italian-Americans are not the Mafia.
In an Italian household, there were two figures for me growing up - you had the Pope and you had Frank Sinatra, and, of course, Tony Bennett. And not necessarily in that order.
I know Italians and I like them. A lot of my father's best friends were Italians.
It's really important for me to have Italian-Americans and Jersey in a positive light.
Everybody I play probably has some Italian in them.
When I first came here, Italian food wasn't anything I recognized. I didn't know what Italian American food was; we never ate it at home. It was the food of immigrants who came here and made use of the ingredients they had.
I've played some gangster roles, but that's obviously not me. When you're an Italian-American New York actor, it's just an easy way to get cast.
I am a proud Italian American, raised by an Italian mother and Italian grandparents.
Early in my career, people wanted to pigeonhole me as the bad guy because I'm of Italian-American descent, which they often were when I started out. You have to fight against it. One of the things that helps is the ability to do comedy.
My boyfriend is Italian and from New Jersey, so naturally he was thrilled to meet Joe Pesci.
The passion of the Italian or the Italian-American population is endless for food and lore and everything about it.
I look back at my elementary or high school pictures and I always had gel in my hair and a gold chain that I would wear outside my shirt. That's how I was born and raised as an Italian male, and I always considered myself a Guido, anyway.
