Giancarlo Giannini (born August 1, 1942) is an Oscar-nominated Italian actor and dubber.
Giannini was born La Spezia, Liguria, Italy. He studied at the Accademia Nazionale in Rome, and made his film debut in a small part in Fango sulla metropoli in 1965. He appeared in supporting roles in Anzio and The Secret of Santa Vittoria, and starred in the original version of Swept Away. In 1971, he appeared in ...e le stelle stanno a guardare, a television adaptation of A. J. Cronin's novel, The Stars Look Down.
In 1976, he starred in Seven Beauties, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, which is unusual in that his performance was given entirely in Italian. He dubbed Jack Nicholson's voice in the Italian release of The Shining. His fluency in English has brought him a number of featured roles in Hollywood productions, most notably as Inspector Pazzi in Hannibal. He has also appeared in A Walk in the Clouds and Man on Fire.
Giannini's best-known starring roles have been in films directed by Lina Wertmuller. In addition to Swept Away and Seven Beauties, he also appeared in The Seduction of Mimi, Love and Anarchy, A Night Full of Rain, and Francesca e Nunziata.
He played the role of the protective father, Alberto Aragón, in A Walk in the Clouds in 1995. He played the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV in the 2000 Dune miniseries. In 2002, he starred in the horror film Darkness. He appears as Rene Mathis in Casino Royale and has signed on to appear in the sequel, Quantum of Solace.
Giancarlo Giannini is an Oscar-nominated Italian actor, director and multilingual dubber who made international reputation for his leading roles in Italian films as well as for his mastery of numerous dialects. He was born on August 1, 1942, in La Spezia, Italy. For ten years young Giannini lived and studied in Naples, Italy, earning his degree in electronics. At the age of 18 he enrolled in the Academy of Dramatic Art D'Amico in Rome, making his stage acting debut there. His stage credits included performances in contemporary Italian plays, as well, as in Italian productions of Shakespeare's plays 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Midsummer's Night Dream'. In 1965, Giannini made his debut on television starring as David Copperfield in TV mini-series made by RAI, the Italian National TV company. He made his big screen debut in Libido (1965) a Freudian psychological thriller. Since 1966, Giannini has been in a successful life-long collaboration with the legendary Italian woman-director Lina Wertmüller who made several award-winning films with Giannini as a male lead. He appears as peasant Tonino who prepares to assassinate dictator Mussolini in Film d'amore e d'anarchia, ovvero 'stamattina alle 10 in via dei Fiori nella nota casa di tolleranza...' (1973), as a sailor in ironic comedy Travolti da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto (1974), and as a survivor of a concentration camp in the Oscar-nominated Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975). Giannini stars as a Jewish musician who is arrested by the Nazis in Faßbinder's masterpiece Lili Marleen (1981). Giannini also made a reputation for dubbing numerous international stars in films released on the Italian market, such as Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Michael Douglas, Dustin Hoffman, Gérard Depardieu and Ian McKellen to name just a few. He received a compliment from Stanley Kubrick for his dubbing of Jack Nicholson in the Italian version of 'The Shining'. Giannini's fluency in English and his mastery of dialects has brought him a number of supporting roles in Hollywood productions, such as A Walk in the Clouds (1995), Hannibal (2001), The Dark (2002), and Man on Fire (2004), among many other. He is billed as Rene Mathis in the 21st James Bond film Casino Royale (2006).
