Son of Bartlett Giamatti, late president of Yale University, major league baseball commissioner and nemesis of Pete Rose.
He is the younger brother of Marcus Giamatti.
In the 1998 remake of Doctor Dolittle (1998), Paul portrayed a human in charge of a talking orangutan, in the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes (2001), he portrays a talking orangutan in charge of humans.
Italian-American
He's the voice talent for Tiger Woods headcover in a series of Nike Golf commercials
His life ambition is to star in a crime caper with Robert Duvall and John Hurt. He plans on contacting the two stars with his idea should Sideways (2004) win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
Often plays roles based on real people - "Private Parts" (1997), "Man on the Moon" (1999), "American Splendor" (2002) and "Cinderella Man" (2005).
Graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall
Graduated from Yale University with a degree in English
Graduated from the Yale University School of Drama with a master's degree in drama
In Sideways (2004) his character, Miles, looks at a picture of himself as a younger man standing with a man in sunglasses. This is a photo of Paul Giamatti with his father, A. Bartlett Giamatti.
Often plays roles based on real people - Private Parts (1997), Man on the Moon (1999) and American Splendor (2003).
Has appeared in three remakes, Sabrina (1995), Doctor Dolittle (1998), and Planet of the Apes (2001).
Was listed as a potential nominee on the 2003 Razzie Award nominating ballot. He was listed as a suggestion in the Worst Supporting Actor category for his performance in the film Big Fat Liar (2002); however, he did not receive a nomination.
Despite his character of Miles in Sideways (2004) and his passion for pinot, Giamatti himself admits that he has very little knowledge of wines and is not much of a fan of them.
During the shooting of the upcoming _Hawk Is Dying, The (2005)_ , which is mainly about his character and a Red-Tailed Hawk, he became a raptor-enthusiast.
Father died in 1989.
Paul Giamatti Detailed Biography
The bookish son of the late A. Bartlett Giamatti, formerly president of Yale University and commissioner of Major League Baseball, Paul Giamatti emerged as a character actor specializing in playing scmoes, schleps and cantankerous sad sacks whose talents eventually catapulted him to stardom as an off-kilter leading man.
Giamatti burst into the spotlight with his hilarious turn opposite Howard Stern, playing Kenny (a.k.a. Pig Vomit), the radio executive who tried to repress the irrepressible Stern, in "Private Parts" (1997). Prior to this breakthrough role, his highest profile work had been a 1994 bit as a bum in a sleeping bag on ABC's "NYPD Blue" and a little more screen time as a G-man in Mike Newell's "Donnie Brasco" (1997). Giamatti has since portrayed Civil War veteran Jeremiah Piper for the ABC "Wonderful World of Disney" presentation "Tourist Trap" (1998) and acted in "Safe Men", shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.
Following his breakout opposite Stern--who the actor was never reluctant to give credit for the boost the shock jock gave his career--Giamatti quickly became one of Hollywood's most in-demand character players, both in the indie and mainstream film world. Supporting roles in high profile films such as "The Truman Show" and "Saving Private Ryan" (both 1998) helped cement Giamatti in the public eye, and he turned in terrific, scene stealing turns opposite Kevin Spacey and Samuel L. Jackson in the hostage thriller "The Negotiator," and he was convincing as Andy Kaufman's longtime, long-suffering collaborator Bob Zmuda opposite Jim Carrey in the Milos Forman biopic "Man on the Moon" (1999). After serving as the perfect foil for Martin Lawrence in "Big Momma's House" (2000) and portraying a down-and-out karaoke aficionado in "Duets" (2000), the actor showed his diversity and dexterity in balancing roles both intensely real and fantastical with turns as a shoe salesman and aspiring documentarian who sets his first film project on a dysfunctional family in the "Non-Fiction" portion of writer-director Todd Solondz's "Storytelling" (2001), and he was appropriately convincing as the untrustworthy orangutan Limbo in Tim Burton's remake of "Planet of the Apes" (2001).
Giamatti turned in a compelling cartoonishly villainous performance as duplicitous Hollywood executive Marty Wolf, who steals a young boy's (Franke Muniz) movie idea in the family-oriented "Big Fat Liar" (2002). Following a standard supporting turn in the noirish "Confidence" (2003), Giamatti wowed audiences with his performance as the angry, embittered, embattled but ultimately fascinating indie comic book auteur Harvey Pekar in the independent biopic "American Splendor" (2003). The actor was honored for the role by the National Board of Review for Best Breakthrough Performance by an Actor and he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead.
After follow-up turns in the above-average telepic "The Pentagon Papers" (2003) and the disappointing John Woo thriller "Paycheck" (2003), Giamatti delivered a tremendous performance in Alexander Payne's wildly praised, seriocomic "Sideways" (2004) as Miles Raymond, the failing writer and wine fanatic who embarks on a revelatory wine country road trip with his about-to-be-married college roommate (Thomas Hayden Church), discovering both the darkest and most promising elements of his nature. Giamatti's poignant and affecting performance was both heartbreaking and hysterical (often both at once) and was hailed as one of the best of the year. Although many were shocked when Giamatti was overlooked for an Oscar nomination, the actor reeled in his share of accolades, including the Best Male Actor trophy at the Independent Spirit Awards, the New York Film Critics Circle Awards and other regional critics' honors, and nominations for Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards—he shared a SAG ensemble award with his castmates. Meanwhile, Giamatti provided the voice of Tim the Gate Guard in the well-reviewed animated feature “Robots” (2005), which depicted a world similar to earth but inhabited entirely by mechanical beings. His next big screen role, lensed before the phenomenal success of "Sideways," was in director Ron Howard's uplifting "Cinderella Man" (2005), playing Joe Gould, the loyal manager of Depression era boxer and folk hero James Braddock (Russell Crowe).
His Broadway stage credits have included the Reverend Donald Bacon in the Lincoln Center production of David Hare's "Racing Demon", Ezra Chater in Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia", also at Lincoln Center, (a "helplessly funny subsidiary role" according to The New York Times' critic Vincent Canby), and Andrei Prozorov in Anton Chekhov's "The Three Sisters" at the Roundabout Theater Company. In October 2002 he starred in Bertolt Brecht's "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" at Pace University's Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts in New York City.
