Joe Cortese

Once a lanky lad from the rough and tumble streets of Paterson, NJ, Joe Cortese is a well-known veteran actor whose career on stage, screen and television spans nearly four decades. But it's his recent work in two of the most honored projects this year and another major role upcoming that has imparted the industry to have an entirely new respect for his versatile skill. In collaboration with visionary directors and the industry's most gifted writers, Joe's rich body of work in the past few months ranged from his portrayal of the Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani in the Ryan Murphy tv crime drama The Assassination of Gianni Versace which won 3 Golden Globes, the Emmy and Critics Choice awards as Best Limited Series (along with 88 other awards and 104 nominations) to a role in one of the most loved films of the year. In fact, both of these projects were two of the most lauded this past winter. It was his portrayal of 'Gio Loscudo' opposite Viggo Mortensen and Maharshala Ali in the Oscar Award winning motion picture, Green Book from director Peter Farrelly, its three 2019 Academy Awards and Golden Globe which truly revved this year up for Joe. At the end of this month, Cortese assumes the role of one of the most colorful characters of our time, 'Roger Stone,' in the much anticipated The Loudest Voice, which will premiere on Showtime June 30th and run for seven weeks. Based on journalist Gabriel Sherman's dishy and damning 2014 biography of the late Roger Ailes, the manipulative former network producer and political operative who was hired by media baron Rupert Murdoch to build what became the notorious Fox News Channel, Joe nails the infamous "trickster" (Roger Stone) as only a veteran actor. Joe was already an accomplished New York stage actor when he was cast in his first leading film role, a charismatic, chameleon-like hit man who could cheerfully dispatch his enemies and send them on a permanent vacation to the North Jersey marshlands. Joe Pesci played his sidekick. That was 1976, and the film, The Death Collector, became a cult classic. And from there, to Hollywood. Throughout his film career, Joe has delivered complex and layered performances in films including: Monsignor, portraying a corrupt U.S. Army sergeant who deals goods on the local black market (with Christopher Reeve); Windows, where he's a self-destructive detective who falls in love with the victim of a crime (with Talia Shire) he is investigating; American History X, portraying a crusading but troubled Police Captain who goes up against Edward Norton; Against The Ropes, (with Meg Ryan and Kerry Washington) in the role of a compromised and somewhat sleazy boxing promoter; Malevolence, where he channeled the killer James Earl Ray, Luckytown, where he played a free-wheeling gambler (with James Caan and Kirsten Dunst and Ruby, where he depicts a Sicilian mobster in Cuba, tormenting Jack Ruby (Danny Aiello) on the eve of the Kennedy assassination. On the indie film scene, Joe has created dark, dynamic, true-to-life roles in The Bronx Bull, the inspiring story of Jake LaMotta, directed by Martin Guigul; and Abel Ferrara's Go Go Tales with Willem De Foe and Bob Hoskins, which had its World Premiere at The Cannes Film Festival' and later that year it had its American Premiere at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center. Later this year, he will star in the indie feature Tonight And Every Night, as a Greek diner owner suffering from dementia who creates an alter ego as a talk show host. As the straight man or side-kick, he's side-splittingly funny opposite Danny Devito in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, or playing a flamboyant, gay icon movie producer in Shut Up and Shoot; as the comically unscrupulous and stoner real estate developer in Doobious Sources; as the gangster with a cautionary tale in You Got Nothin by director Phillip Angelotti; and playing a mob enforcer opposite Matthew Modine and Elizabeth Berkley in the Viagra heist comedy The Shipment; and as the fractured fabulist in his own meta-comedy, the short film Vito's Taking Over. To television fans, he is known for his role as Johnny Roselli in HBO's critically acclaimed movie, The Rat Pack; the PBS Vision series special He Wants Her Back, written and directed by Stanton Kaye; top-rated television projects including The C.A.T. Squad, a trilogy of two-hour movies for NBC and producer/director William Friedkin; the mini-series Something's Out There for NBC, as well as Exclusive with Suzanne Somers (ABC), Assault and Matrimony (NBC), Just Life with Victoria Principal (ABC), Letting' Go with John Ritter (ABC), Born to Run (FOX), Sidney Sheldon's mini-series If Tomorrow Comes (CBS) and Jackie Collins' Lady Boss (NBC). Joe is a lifetime member of the Actors Studio, where he continue to hone his craft while mentoring the next generation of acting talent. Vis kilde på IMDb