Vincent D'Onofrio

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Birthday:

30 June 1959, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Birth Name:

Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio

Height:

192 cm

Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio was born on June 30, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York, to Phyllis, a restaurant manager and server, and Gene D'Onofrio, a theater production assistant and interior designer. He is of Italian descent and has two older sisters. He studied at the Actors Studio and the American Stanislavski Theatre. Vincent D'Onofrio is known as an "actor's actor". The wide variety of roles he has played and the quality of his work have earned him a reputation as a versatile talent.His first paid role was in Off-Broadway's "This Property Is Condemned". He continued appearing in plays and worked as a bouncer, a bodyguard and a delivery man. In 1984, he made his Broadway debut in "Open Admissions", followed by work in numerous other stage plays. In 2012, D'Onofrio returned to teach at the Lee Strasberg Theater & Film Institute. As a film actor, D'Onofrio's career break came when he played a mentally unbalanced recruit in Full Metal Jacket (1987), directed by the renowned Stanley Kubrick. For this role D'Onofrio gained nearly 70 pounds. He had a major role in Dying Young (1991), and appeared prominently in the box-office smash Men in Black (1997) as the bad guy (Edgar "The Bug").Other films of note in which he has appeared are Mystic Pizza (1988), JFK (1991), The Player (1992), Ed Wood (1994), The Cell (2000), The Break-Up (2006) and Jurassic World (2015). In 1996, D'Onofrio garnered critical acclaim along with co-star Renée Zellweger for The Whole Wide World (1996), which he helped produce. He also made a guest appearance in Homicide: Life on the Street: The Subway (1997), where he played an accident victim who could not be rescued and was destined to die. For this performance he won an Emmy nomination. In 2000, he both produced and starred in Steal This Movie (2000), a biopic of radical leader Abbie Hoffman.In 2001, D'Onofrio took the role which has likely given him his greatest public recognition: Det. Robert Goren, the lead character in the TV series Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001). Goren is based on Sherlock Holmes but, instead of relying upon physical evidence like Holmes, D'Onofrio's character focuses on psychology to identify the perpetrators, whom he often draws into confessing or yielding condemning evidence. He played the part for 10 years.In his career D'Onofrio's various film characters have included a priest, a bisexual former porn star, a hijacker, a serial killer, Orson Welles, a space alien, a 1960s radical leader, a pulp fiction writer, an ingenious police investigator and Stuart Smalley's dope-head brother. His on-screen love interests have included Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, Renée Zellweger, Marisa Tomei, Tracey Ullman, Rebecca De Mornay and Lili Taylor. One of his latest roles is in Marvel's Daredevil (2015) as Daredevil's nemesis, Wilson Fisk. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and children. Show less «

[on acting] Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always t...Show more »

[on acting] Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That's Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that. Show less «

I took a route of acting, rather than starmaking, so it cost me a lot financially.

[on his career choices] It's something that I've been saying for years when people ask me how I pick the things that I do. I pick the things...Show more »

[on his career choices] It's something that I've been saying for years when people ask me how I pick the things that I do. I pick the things that scare me the most. You have to like the story first. I'm not gonna play a part that doesn't instill some kind of fear in me. If I read a part, and suddenly, I'm thinking halfway through, "I'm not sure I could get away with this", I think of everything I can think of to keep me from doing it, that's the one I should do. Show less «

I am a method actor, but I'm also a film actor as well as a method actor. Characters that don't have humility, whether they are heroes or vi...Show more »

I am a method actor, but I'm also a film actor as well as a method actor. Characters that don't have humility, whether they are heroes or villains, are hard to relate to. All characters in every aspect of what we do should have humility. If they don't, then they're a cartoon character. I know that during actual performance scenes, what I need to trigger myself off, and I know how to trigger it off so that it will trigger you off, which will also influence how you feel when I'm expressionless. Show less «

I'm not gonna make excuses for other actors. I'm just talking about myself. The good actors that I've met - I've met some of the best actors...Show more »

I'm not gonna make excuses for other actors. I'm just talking about myself. The good actors that I've met - I've met some of the best actors that we'll ever see - and I know for sure the one thing that we all have in common when we all look in each other's eyes, is that we're all struggling to achieve 100%. That's all I see when I see another artist. All of us are trying to achieve 100% in our work. That's all we struggle to do. We never do, but we never stop trying until the day we die. It's that struggle to achieve 100%, that's where our performance lies, that's what the audience gets. They get the struggle. Show less «

[on being a "Method" actor] The thing is, it's the research that you do that is exhausting. That's what always affects you. When I did The C...Show more »

[on being a "Method" actor] The thing is, it's the research that you do that is exhausting. That's what always affects you. When I did The Cell (2000)--no matter what you think of that movie, because I have my opinions of it, too--it was, you know, I still have nightmares from the research that I did. Not from playing the part, just from the research. There was stuff that I should have never looked at, that I should have never gone anywhere near. As a father, I can't imagine going to that place again. I'm not saying I wouldn't, I'm just saying it was too much. Show less «

[on his role in Ed Wood (1994)] I never was happy with the job I did in "Ed Wood". Even though [Tim Burton] was, I wasn't. Because it's not ...Show more »

[on his role in Ed Wood (1994)] I never was happy with the job I did in "Ed Wood". Even though [Tim Burton] was, I wasn't. Because it's not what I wanted, it's not what I wanted. First of all, the company, for whatever reason, not Tim, but the company took a very long time to hire me and I was busy doing another project. I eventually only ended up with three weeks to prepare for it and that bothered me. But, you know, I had to be brave and I had to do it the best I could. It was too much of a caricature. I didn't like it. It was too surface of a performance. Show less «

[on playing real-life characters] There's a lot of shame that goes on when you're playing someone who has really lived and has passed. You'r...Show more »

[on playing real-life characters] There's a lot of shame that goes on when you're playing someone who has really lived and has passed. You're struggling with it all the time. I am, anyway. When I played Robert Howard in The Whole Wide World (1996), I was struggling with it. There's this dual thing where you feel real good about being able to play this juicy part, and then there's constant shame: "Who am I to pretend to know who this guy was? Who am I to represent this guy for people who never knew him?" The pressure is unbelievable, I can't tell you. Show less «

Unless you look like Brad Pitt, it's really hard to have full control of your character.

The most fun you can possibly have as an actor is to walk that line between what's real and what's interesting.

The minute you start feeling like you've got it down, you know what you're doing, you're dead in the water.

Acting is not a mystery. There's nothing that I know that other actors don't know. We all act, we're all actors, we all know the same thing....Show more »

Acting is not a mystery. There's nothing that I know that other actors don't know. We all act, we're all actors, we all know the same thing. The only thing that separates us is experience. Show less «

What kind of recognition do I deserve? I don't deserve any recognition.

With [Robert] Altman, he does discuss everything with you, but then leaves you to it and gives you full rein and lets you improvise and crea...Show more »

With [Robert] Altman, he does discuss everything with you, but then leaves you to it and gives you full rein and lets you improvise and create a character while the camera is rolling. Show less «

When I was younger I used to pick things just to face the fear.

The more you are known, the more difficult it is to hide behind characters.

When you are a character actor they trust you will go in and give them a full character and leave.

It's like why people read scary books or go see scary movies. Because it creates a distance. They're scared, but they're not going to get hu...Show more »

It's like why people read scary books or go see scary movies. Because it creates a distance. They're scared, but they're not going to get hurt. Show less «

When you're a child you're able to assimilate so easily into any situation. You even start talking like the people you're around. I wasn't c...Show more »

When you're a child you're able to assimilate so easily into any situation. You even start talking like the people you're around. I wasn't conscious that I was so good at that until I started to truly feel like an actor. Show less «

To me the definition of true masculinity - and femininity, too - is being able to lay in your own skin comfortably.