Although most everyone knows the Italian-born New Jersey-reared actor Federico Castelluccio for his role as Furio Giunta on the critically acclaimed HBO crime drama The Sopranos, on top of being an actor he's actually a very successful painter, and a genius when it comes to art identification. Born in Italy but raised in New Jersey, Federico studied art at NYC's School of Visual Arts, then pursued an acting career while also painting. Federico first played a Maltese Guard on Another World, then helped work on some of the fake paintings as an art consultant for The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). But Federico's crowning achievement as an actor, and the one that had HBO loving housewives dreaming of having an affair with the Italian stallion, came in 2000, when he landed the role of Tony's ponytailed enforcer Furio Giunta. We want that pony riding our tail! See, that role gave us a bulge-tastic look at his package during a painful and bloody scene of bullet-removing surgery in season three, episode twelve. Federico moved on to play Jerry Masucci in the Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony led biopic El Cantante (2006), a Turin based tour guide in The Pink Panther 2 (2009), Detective Mueller in Exit 0 (2019), and most recently, Detective Jones in The Mick and the Tick (2022). But Federico doesn't need a ton of acting roles to pay the bills. In 2014, Federico bought a painting that a Frankfurt Gallery thought was from the 18th century for 68K. But Federico knew the Frankfurt gallery was wrong, and that it was actually a Guercino piece from the 17th century, that's worth over 10 million bucks. Slick stuff, Federico. Around here we recognize fine fellas, and Mr. Castellucio's definitely one of them!
