Paul Giamatti was born on June 6, 1967 in New Haven, Connecticut to a distinguished academic family. His father, A. Bartlett Giamatti, was a professor of Renaissance Literature at Yale and later the President of the prestigious university, while his mother Toni Smith was a teacher at the distinguished Hopkins School. A talented, classically trained actor, Giamatti was educated at the Choate Rosemary Hall boarding school, and later earned a B.A. in English and an M.F.A. in Drama from Yale. An unlikely movie star, Giamatti has rocketed to fame on the strength of his terrific performance in Alexander Payne’s award-winning comedy “Sideways”.
After graduating from the Yale School of Drama, Giamatti earned roles on Broadway and in prominent regional stage productions in Seattle and Williamstown, Massachusetts. Some of his early film roles include bit parts in Cameron Crowe’s “Singles” and the 1995 remake of “Sabrina” with Harrison Ford. Howard Stern’s autobiographical laugher “Private Parts” was a major breakthrough for Giamatti, as Stern himself repeatedly trumpeted his supporting performance as Oscar-worthy. Though the role didn’t earn Giamatti any accolades, it nonetheless led him to higher profile roles in “The Negotiator”, “Cradle Will Rock”, “Man on the Moon”, and Tim Burton’s remake of “Planet of the Apes”, in which Giamatti portrayed a talking orangutan.
Giamatti is famous for his everyman sensibilities and incredibly earnest comedic performances, trademarks he exhibited to much acclaim in his starring debut in 2003’s indie favorite “American Splendor”. Playing famed comic artist Harvey Pekar, Giamatti’s sincerity and self-deprecating humor helped make the film a heartfelt analysis of Pekar’s uniquely naturalist work. The next year Giamatti starred in “Sideways” alongside Thomas Haden Church and Sandra Oh, playing a failed novelist on a vacation with his soon-to-be-married best friend in the California wine country. The Oscar-winning film became the sleeper hit of the year, and Giamatti’s hilarious performance made him a household name, in addition to providing a surge in popularity for pinot wines.
Since the success of “Sideways”, Giamatti earned an Oscar nomination for Ron Howard’s boxing drama “Cinderella Man”, and this summer headlined M. Night Shyamalan’s savagely reviewed fairy tale “Lady in the Water”. Recently he has lent his voice to the computer-animated comedy “The Ant Bully”, and can be seen in “The Illusionist” alongside Edward Norton and Jessica Biel.