Michael Imperioli

An intense actor who regularly plays characters of Italian descent, Imperioli first made an impression as an aspiring Mafioso who ill-advisedly laughs at Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. Throughout the '90s, he played a succession of cops, criminals and everymen on the big screen. He was in five films by Spike Lee, including the 1999 drama Summer of Sam, which he cowrote with the director. Imperioli---who had been romantically linked with frequent costar Lili Taylor before marrying another woman in 1995---scored a big year in 1999, when he landed a career-making role on the mob TV series The Sopranos as Tony Soprano's irascible nephew, earning an Emmy win and five Emmy nominations for his multifaceted portrayal. He stayed with the small screen after The Sopranos ended its run in 2007, playing a hard-fisted detective on the out-there cop drama Life on Mars (2008-09) and headlining the police-themed Detroit 1-8-7 in 2010. ~ Rovi