P.J. Marino

P.J. Marino was born and raised in Boston's North End, or Little Italy. He started his career as a stand-up comic, quickly getting spots at some of Boston's best comedy clubs, such as The Comedy Connection and Nick's Comedy Stop. He landed an acting job after his first audition, a national commercial for Nike starring Ken Griffey Jr., in which Griffey hits a foul ball off the head of a popcorn vendor played by P.J. After his first film audition, P.J. landed the role of Brian in "Little Shots of Happiness", shot entirely in Boston on Super 8 video, this film got accepted in over a dozen festivals, including Berlin, New York Underground, and Thessalonika.He moved to Los Angeles in 1998, and took his first acting class, studying with Aaron Speiser in Beverly Hills. Within a few months, he got his first TV audition, a recurring role in a new Fox sitcom looking for authentic Boston accents called "Costello". Four callbacks later, he booked it, and shot his first TV show on the Disney lot. Several national commercials followed, including Saturn, Coors Light, Blockbuster, Volkswagen, and a widely shown Coors Original campaign with Kid Rock. In the meantime, P.J. has worked steadily in TV shows, appearing on "Everybody Hates Chris", "King of Queens", "Without A Trace", "Las Vegas", "ER", "Alias", and many others. He also appeared on stage in "The Talking Cure" under the guidance of artistic director Gordon Davidson and writer Christopher Hampton (Academy-Award winner for Dangerous Liaisons), and performed at downtown LA?s prestigious Mark Taper Forum.P.J. is also a writer. His spec script for "The Simpsons" placed second in a recent national competition sponsored by Scriptapalooza, and his original pilot, "Bella Napoli", was a finalist with Writers? Digest and Square Magazine. He just finished his second feature-length screenplay, "Over The Tobin", based on his life growing up in the North End. Show less «