Marisa Tomei (born December 4, 1964)
Academy Award-winning American actress of stage and screen.
Academy Award-winning American actress of stage and screen.
Marisa Tomei, an Italian American, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Patricia "Addie," an English teacher, and Gary A. Tomei, a trial lawyer. Marisa Tomei has a younger brother, Adam, and was partly raised by her paternal grandparents, Rita and Romeo Tomei. Marisa Tomei grew up in Midwood. While there she became captivated by the Broadway shows that her theater-loving parents took her to and became drawn to acting as a career. After graduating from Edward R. Murrow High School, she attended Boston University for a year, then transferred to New York University, in 1983, after landing a role in the soap opera As The World Turns. Soon after, she dropped out of school altogether as her career began to take off.
Marisa Tomei followed up As the World Turns, in 1987, with a role on the sitcom A Different World. Her breakthrough performance came in My Cousin Vinny (1992), for which she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. After her Oscar win, she received a Screen Actor’s Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Female Supporting Actor for Unhook the Stars. Next, she received an American Comedy Award nomination for Funniest Supporting Actress for Slums of Beverly Hills. Marisa Tomei was nominated for a Satellite Award, as Best Supporting Actress for What Women Want.
Marisa Tomei received a second Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for In The Bedroom (2001). Marisa Tomei has also done substantial work in the theater, including taking lead roles on Broadway in Wait Until Dark (1998) and Salomé (2003), and many Off-Broadway plays.
In 1996, Marisa Tomei made a guest appearance on the sitcom Seinfeld, playing herself in "The Cadillac" two-part episode. Marisa Tomei has also made an appearance on The Simpsons, as a movie star who falls in love with Ned Flanders. In 2005, Marisa Tomei featured in an ad campaign for Hanes with the slogan "Look who we’ve got our Hanes on now", featuring various other celebrities including Michael Jordan, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Damon Wayans, Matthew Perry and, on Spanish-language advertising, Aracely Arambula and Pablo Montero.
In 2006, Marisa Tomei had a recurring role on the TV series Rescue Me, playing "Johnny’s" ex-wife "Angie." In 2007, she returned to the big screen in the Sidney Lumet-directed Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, opposite co-stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke. This role received extra attention for the usually modest Tomei, who had renowned nude love scenes with both Hoffman and Hawke.