Michael Imperioli

Getting shot (fake) in GoodFellas sent him to the hospital with real blood. He insisted on doing his own stunt as Spider the errand boy, hit a bar, and shattered glass cut two fingers open. He left the set soaked in stage blood and fake bullet holes, and ER nurses thought he'd actually been shot. That got him noticed. By 1999, The Sopranos gave him Christopher Moltisanti, a mob soldier whose hunger and self-destruction made him one of the most watchable characters on premium cable. He won the Emmy for it in 2004 and wrote five of the show's episodes, which is rare for an actor in a drama.

White Lotus Season 2 wasn't handed to him. He had to audition, and his managers told him to rewatch the show after his first attempt missed the humor. He got it anyway, played a sex-addicted Hollywood producer in Sicily, and picked up another Emmy nomination. Broadway followed in 2024 alongside Jeremy Strong in An Enemy of the People, where Variety called him 'a sharklike apex predator.' When the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling let businesses refuse service to same-sex couples, he posted that bigots were banned from watching his work. He doesn't seem worried about the blowback.

He dropped pre-med and moved to Manhattan's East Village at 17, and spent his twenties meeting Lou Reed and Allen Ginsberg in the downtown scene. That world fed a 2018 novel, The Perfume Burned His Eyes, with Lou Reed as an actual character. He's also fronted an indie rock trio called ZOPA since 2006. The name means 'patience' in Tibetan, which is also his Buddhist refuge name. He took vows from a Tibetan lama, reportedly runs a dharma center in Tribeca with his wife, and teaches meditation. The acting career is the most commercial thing about him.