Anthony LaPaglia: from Adelaide soccer goalie to netting US Tony, Emmy Golden Globe awards – nearly Tony Soprano
AAnthony LaPaglia (at left) featured in the lead role of Arthur Miller's Death of of a Salesman at Sydney's Theatre Royal in 2024. His award-winning versatility ranged from the Australian film Looking for Alibrandi (top right), with Greta Scarcchi and Pia Miranda; seven years in the FBI television drama Without a Trace (middle right); and stage roles including farces such as Lend me a Tenor (bottom right).
From Adelaide shoe salesman to Death of a Salesman, Anthony LaPaglia’s brave rise through versatility, from a Hollywood gambit in the 1980s, won him Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe awards.
Of Dutch-Italian heritage, LaPaglia, who grew up in a new Adelaide northeastern suburb with the later-obsolete name of Beefacres, was educated at Pius X School in Windsor Gardens, Rostrevor College and, more comfortable outside of Catholic education, Norwood High in the 1970s. He became a goalkeeper for Adelaide City and West Adelaide in the National Soccer League.
Rejected by NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) in Sydney, LaPaglia enrolled as a teenager in an acting course at South Australian Castings Agency but he left half way through for Los Angeles under a transfer by Florsheim Shoes, his Adelaide employer as a salesman,
In the United States of America, LaPaglia's earliest screen credit – in a 1985 episode of Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories – was the first of many television appearances. His first feature film was Cold Steel (1987) before the title role in the telemovie Nitti:The Enforcer. He was a supporting mobster in Betsy’s Wedding (1990) and starred in the biopic 29th Street, followed by roles in the vampire/Mafia story Innocent Blood (1992), the comedy thriller So I married an axe murderer (1993), legal thriller The Client (1994) and comedy Empire Records.
In 1997–98, LaPaglia appeared in a Broadway production of Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge, winning a Tony award as Eddie Carbone. Before the play opened, LaPaglia was sent a script for the pilot of The Sopranos and met its creator David Chase to discuss taking the Tony Soprano lead role. Spike Lee cast LaPaglia as a New York police detective in Summer of Sam (1999).
During 2000-2004, LaPaglia appeared in eight episodes of the sitcom Frasier, playing Daphne Moon's brother Simon. The role won him an Emmy Award for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series.
LaPaglia made his debut in an Australian production opposite Hugo Weaving in The Custodian (1993), followed by romantic comedy Paperback Romance (1994) with Gia Carides, whom he later married. He returned from Los Angeles, for roles in major Australian films such as Looking for Alibrandi (2000), Lantana (2001), The Bank (2001), Happy Feet (2006), $9.99 (2008), Balibo (2009) and Happy Feet Two (2011). LaPaglia won best actor awards in Lantana and Balibo.
In 2002, LaPaglia starred as a fire captain opposite Sigourney Weaver in The Guys, about New York firemen who died in the World Trade Centre. He also played fictional Australian actor Anthony Bella in the comedy film Analyse That but was uncredited in his role.
LaPaglia was the central character in the FBI television drama Without a Trace for seven years from 2002 and cowrote the “Deep water” episode. He won the 2004 Golden Globe for the best actor in a TV series for this role. He began accepting work in Australia more frequently. After major roles in Underground (2012), a biopic about Julian Assange, and the comedy Mental (2012), LaPaglia had a supporting role in Neil Armfield’s 2015 Australian romantic-drama film Holding the Man. In that year, LaPaglia returned to Adelaide to star in the film A Month of Sundays.
In 2016, he appeared in his first Australian TV series, The Code, a political thriller followed by four-part crime drama Sunshine (2017) on SBS. LaPaglia played Vito Rizzuto in the Simon Barry Canadian TV series Bad Blood, in French on ICI Radio-Canada. From 2017 to 2020, he starred in Neil Jordan's series Riviera. In 2023 LaPaglia was in the ABC TV series The Black Hand on the Italian Ndrangheta in the cane fields of Queensland in the 1920s and 1930s . LaPaglia won the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) best supporting actor award for Justin Kurzel's 2021 film Nitram.
During 2023 and 2024, LaPaglia made his Australian stage debut as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in Melbourne and Sydney.