Earning laughs on 'Nurse Jackie' and winning fans in the 'Twilight' series, Peter Facinelli hits his stride.
Not long ago, Peter Facinelli went to meet with "Training Day" director Antoine Fuqua on a new project. Though Facinelli has been in the business for more than 15 years and has played a wide variety of characters, he is probably best known as Dr. Carlisle Cullen, the adoptive father to a brood of gorgeous vampires in the "Twilight" film series. Carlisle is described as eternally young and so good-looking he practically makes nurses faint in his wake, and it's not hard to see why the actor who got his big break as the hotshot jock in "Can't Hardly Wait" was the perfect choice for the role.
But when Facinelli sat down with Fuqua and his producer, he made an offbeat suggestion. "I said, 'You know who I'd really love to play?' " he recalls. "They assumed I was talking about the lead role, for whom they were pursuing huge names." In actuality, the character he was interested in was a mentally slow man who kidnaps a child; the part was written as a heavyset, lumbering man. "The producer actually laughed," Facinelli says. "He thought I was joking. But I meant it. I've seen in every movie how that character is played by a large character guy with a shaved head and one tooth. I said, 'I want a crack at that.' So I grew a beard and messed up my hair and put myself on tape."
Plans for the movie ended up falling through, but Facinelli remains proud of the work he did auditioning for it. "I'm hoping I convinced them I could play that part," he says. "I've always been drawn to the more meaty characters. If they happen to be leading men, great. If not, I want to be the guy you walk away remembering."
Though only 36 years old, Facinelli has been in the business long enough to see his career run the gamut from teen heartthrob to action hero, without any label really sticking—a conscious choice on his part, he says. That career has been a saga marked by roles he almost didn't get, big breaks he almost missed out on, and characters he turned down to avoid being pigeonholed. Yet after all these years, it seems Facinelli is finally finding his place. In addition to the "Twilight" films, which have earned him millions of new fans, the actor continues his sublime portrayal of oblivious Dr. Fitch Cooper on Season 2 of the Showtime dark comedy "Nurse Jackie."
Eager to please yet utterly clueless how to do so, Cooper could be a one-note caricature, but Facinelli brings empathy to the role he describes as "a puppy jumping on legs in a room full of people who hate dogs." He isn't even sure whether Cooper is a good doctor. "Depends on the day of the week," he says with a laugh. "He'll either cure you of cancer or kill you with an ear infection." For those who associate the actor with brooding dramatic roles, his work as the goofy, awkward doctor constantly vying for Jackie's attention is nothing short of revelatory.
Asked if he feels that either his roles or his performances have improved in recent years, Facinelli says he has never considered age a factor: "I've always just kept moving forward and looking for something new. Whenever my agents say, 'What do you want to do next?,' I say, 'Anything I haven't done before.' "
An Education
Growing up in Queens, N.Y., Facinelli had the desire to be an actor from the moment he caught "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" on TV, but he had no idea how to go about it. Painfully shy, to the point that he couldn't stand in the lunch line at school—"I'd grab something at the pretzel cart in the back of the cafeteria and eat there"—it wasn't until he attended St. John's University that he dared to study acting. "I was thinking of going prelaw, and I noticed there was an Acting 101 class," he recalls. "Most kids were taking it because they thought it was like basket weaving—you could show up and just get an A. But I was really interested, and after that first class, I wanted to dedicate my life to it."
After his first year, Facinelli transferred to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and immersed himself in acting. Students in the school study at various theaters and studios in the city, including the Atlantic Theater Company, where some of Facinelli's early teachers included William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman. "I highly doubt they would remember me," he says with a laugh. "It wasn't like anyone could look at me and say, 'That kid's going somewhere!' "
During his last year of school, he was able to land an agent at Writers and Artists in New York, based solely on a referral from a manager who taught his acting class. "I didn't care if it took until I was 60 years old; I was going to get a job acting. That was my goal, just to get a job," Facinelli recalls. As it turns out, things moved a bit more quickly. After auditioning for a full year without booking a single job, he landed the role of Lucifer in a small independent film directed by Rebecca Miller. Then, like all New York actors, he booked a guest spot on "Law & Order," and while he was shooting it, creator Dick Wolf tapped him to do a part on his short-lived show "The Wright Verdicts." After that, the roles started coming fast and furious, to the point where Facinelli had to leave school, 15 credits shy of graduating. "I ran into Dick Wolf at the SAG Awards," he says, "and told him, 'You're the reason I don't have my diploma, but you're also the reason I have my SAG card, so it's a good trade.' "
Several indie films followed, and Facinelli began to see the same actors—including Skeet Ulrich, Freddie Prinze Jr., James Marsden, and Ryan Phillippe—in the waiting rooms of his auditions. Then came his first big break in a studio feature, playing Mike Dexter in "Can't Hardly Wait." A big man on campus who dumps his girlfriend on the last day of high school, believing he can do better, Mike ends the film understanding the harsh reality of his future life. The role would finally propel Facinelli to a new level—and he almost turned it down.
"There was another film I wanted to do, a little indie called 'Blue Ridge Fall,' " he reveals. "I wasn't thinking business; I was thinking characters—although Mike ended up being a good character, having a nice little arc to him. If he had just been a jock all the way through, I probably would have passed; it would be like playing the villain in 'The Karate Kid.' " Fortunately, the other movie was pushed and Facinelli was able to do both. "I was lucky because that was a great opportunity for me," he says. "And the other movie, well, nobody saw."
After "Can't Hardly Wait," he was offered every teen movie role possible, he says—and he turned them all down. He passed on "She's All That" three times, much to the frustration of his representation. "I could have had a nice little career and been on the cover of Teen Beat," he says. "But I didn't want that. I felt like, 'If that's what people think I am, I've got to do something completely different.' So I shaved my head, grew a beard, put on 10 pounds of muscle, and did 'Supernova.' " Playing opposite James Spader in the sci-fi action project certainly showed another side of the actor. But Facinelli is brutally honest about the final product. "Had that movie worked, it would have been a great career move," he admits. "But it didn't."
One of the most coveted roles in young Hollywood came to him without an audition. "The Big Kahuna," based on Roger Rueff's play, focuses on two ethically dubious salesmen, played by Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito. Thrown into the mix is their young underling, a naïve salesman whose religious beliefs end up helping to land a major client. "I didn't even read for that," Facinelli says. "My manager sent over my reel, which showed a nice versatility at that point, and the director said he never watched anyone else's."
Ironically, if he had read for the movie, he probably wouldn't have gotten it, he says: "I don't think I would have had that character fully developed. That's why sometimes the audition process is hard for me. Somewhere between getting the role and working on the movie, you develop and create the character. When you just have one day, you can only give them a taste of it." Only 24 at the time, Facinelli was intimidated by his co-stars, he says, but he was able to use it for the role: "Every night, I'd go home and wonder if I felt beat up as the character or as myself. I thought, 'Either I'm sucking and these guys are acting rings around me, or I'm so in the zone as the character, I'm doing well.' I couldn't tell."
But when Facinelli sat down with Fuqua and his producer, he made an offbeat suggestion. "I said, 'You know who I'd really love to play?' " he recalls. "They assumed I was talking about the lead role, for whom they were pursuing huge names." In actuality, the character he was interested in was a mentally slow man who kidnaps a child; the part was written as a heavyset, lumbering man. "The producer actually laughed," Facinelli says. "He thought I was joking. But I meant it. I've seen in every movie how that character is played by a large character guy with a shaved head and one tooth. I said, 'I want a crack at that.' So I grew a beard and messed up my hair and put myself on tape."
Plans for the movie ended up falling through, but Facinelli remains proud of the work he did auditioning for it. "I'm hoping I convinced them I could play that part," he says. "I've always been drawn to the more meaty characters. If they happen to be leading men, great. If not, I want to be the guy you walk away remembering."
Though only 36 years old, Facinelli has been in the business long enough to see his career run the gamut from teen heartthrob to action hero, without any label really sticking—a conscious choice on his part, he says. That career has been a saga marked by roles he almost didn't get, big breaks he almost missed out on, and characters he turned down to avoid being pigeonholed. Yet after all these years, it seems Facinelli is finally finding his place. In addition to the "Twilight" films, which have earned him millions of new fans, the actor continues his sublime portrayal of oblivious Dr. Fitch Cooper on Season 2 of the Showtime dark comedy "Nurse Jackie."
Eager to please yet utterly clueless how to do so, Cooper could be a one-note caricature, but Facinelli brings empathy to the role he describes as "a puppy jumping on legs in a room full of people who hate dogs." He isn't even sure whether Cooper is a good doctor. "Depends on the day of the week," he says with a laugh. "He'll either cure you of cancer or kill you with an ear infection." For those who associate the actor with brooding dramatic roles, his work as the goofy, awkward doctor constantly vying for Jackie's attention is nothing short of revelatory.
Asked if he feels that either his roles or his performances have improved in recent years, Facinelli says he has never considered age a factor: "I've always just kept moving forward and looking for something new. Whenever my agents say, 'What do you want to do next?,' I say, 'Anything I haven't done before.' "
An Education
Growing up in Queens, N.Y., Facinelli had the desire to be an actor from the moment he caught "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" on TV, but he had no idea how to go about it. Painfully shy, to the point that he couldn't stand in the lunch line at school—"I'd grab something at the pretzel cart in the back of the cafeteria and eat there"—it wasn't until he attended St. John's University that he dared to study acting. "I was thinking of going prelaw, and I noticed there was an Acting 101 class," he recalls. "Most kids were taking it because they thought it was like basket weaving—you could show up and just get an A. But I was really interested, and after that first class, I wanted to dedicate my life to it."
After his first year, Facinelli transferred to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and immersed himself in acting. Students in the school study at various theaters and studios in the city, including the Atlantic Theater Company, where some of Facinelli's early teachers included William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman. "I highly doubt they would remember me," he says with a laugh. "It wasn't like anyone could look at me and say, 'That kid's going somewhere!' "
During his last year of school, he was able to land an agent at Writers and Artists in New York, based solely on a referral from a manager who taught his acting class. "I didn't care if it took until I was 60 years old; I was going to get a job acting. That was my goal, just to get a job," Facinelli recalls. As it turns out, things moved a bit more quickly. After auditioning for a full year without booking a single job, he landed the role of Lucifer in a small independent film directed by Rebecca Miller. Then, like all New York actors, he booked a guest spot on "Law & Order," and while he was shooting it, creator Dick Wolf tapped him to do a part on his short-lived show "The Wright Verdicts." After that, the roles started coming fast and furious, to the point where Facinelli had to leave school, 15 credits shy of graduating. "I ran into Dick Wolf at the SAG Awards," he says, "and told him, 'You're the reason I don't have my diploma, but you're also the reason I have my SAG card, so it's a good trade.' "
Several indie films followed, and Facinelli began to see the same actors—including Skeet Ulrich, Freddie Prinze Jr., James Marsden, and Ryan Phillippe—in the waiting rooms of his auditions. Then came his first big break in a studio feature, playing Mike Dexter in "Can't Hardly Wait." A big man on campus who dumps his girlfriend on the last day of high school, believing he can do better, Mike ends the film understanding the harsh reality of his future life. The role would finally propel Facinelli to a new level—and he almost turned it down.
"There was another film I wanted to do, a little indie called 'Blue Ridge Fall,' " he reveals. "I wasn't thinking business; I was thinking characters—although Mike ended up being a good character, having a nice little arc to him. If he had just been a jock all the way through, I probably would have passed; it would be like playing the villain in 'The Karate Kid.' " Fortunately, the other movie was pushed and Facinelli was able to do both. "I was lucky because that was a great opportunity for me," he says. "And the other movie, well, nobody saw."
After "Can't Hardly Wait," he was offered every teen movie role possible, he says—and he turned them all down. He passed on "She's All That" three times, much to the frustration of his representation. "I could have had a nice little career and been on the cover of Teen Beat," he says. "But I didn't want that. I felt like, 'If that's what people think I am, I've got to do something completely different.' So I shaved my head, grew a beard, put on 10 pounds of muscle, and did 'Supernova.' " Playing opposite James Spader in the sci-fi action project certainly showed another side of the actor. But Facinelli is brutally honest about the final product. "Had that movie worked, it would have been a great career move," he admits. "But it didn't."
One of the most coveted roles in young Hollywood came to him without an audition. "The Big Kahuna," based on Roger Rueff's play, focuses on two ethically dubious salesmen, played by Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito. Thrown into the mix is their young underling, a naïve salesman whose religious beliefs end up helping to land a major client. "I didn't even read for that," Facinelli says. "My manager sent over my reel, which showed a nice versatility at that point, and the director said he never watched anyone else's."
Ironically, if he had read for the movie, he probably wouldn't have gotten it, he says: "I don't think I would have had that character fully developed. That's why sometimes the audition process is hard for me. Somewhere between getting the role and working on the movie, you develop and create the character. When you just have one day, you can only give them a taste of it." Only 24 at the time, Facinelli was intimidated by his co-stars, he says, but he was able to use it for the role: "Every night, I'd go home and wonder if I felt beat up as the character or as myself. I thought, 'Either I'm sucking and these guys are acting rings around me, or I'm so in the zone as the character, I'm doing well.' I couldn't tell."
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Carrie
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