Part of The Sopranos featuring James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Lorraine Bracco, Michael Imperioli, and Dominic Chianese.
Rise to Fame
He was 6 when a manager spotted him on a Manhattan street and put him in a Pizza Hut commercial. By 10 he was back, doing TV spots before landing the part that would define his career: AJ Soprano on HBO's The Sopranos in 1999. It's one of the rare TV roles that aged with the actor in real time. He played Tony's sulky, identity-confused son for eight years and six seasons, going from kid to young adult without the show pretending otherwise.
In the Spotlight
The Sopranos ended in 2007 and he walked away. Not a break. An exit. He moved to Las Vegas, spent years gambling and partying, and substance issues followed. He got sober in 2013. He returned to acting in Tom Segura's Netflix series Bad Thoughts in 2025, nearly two decades after his last real screen credit. The bar for 'comeback' is higher when you started on a show still argued about fifteen years after it ended.
Side Notes
In the summer of 2001, mid-run on The Sopranos, he was arrested as an accomplice in the mugging of two Brazilian teenagers and was found with marijuana. He faced up to 15 years in prison. He pled down to a misdemeanor and got three years of probation, then went back to set. He'd been playing poker since his grandmother taught him as a kid, which explains where the Vegas years eventually led. He's the kind of actor whose most famous work happened before he was old enough to legally buy a beer.