Riccardo Scamarcio

Italian film actor and film producer.

He trained as an actor at the Scuola Nazionale di Cinema in Rome, where he now lives. His debut acting role was in a TV series in 2000, while his first ever lead role in a feature film was in Tre metri sopra il cielo (2004), directed by Luca Lucini. Through this he immediately became well known to the Italian speaking public, especially a young audience. His success brought him prominence as a sex symbol and boosted requests for his acting skills, leading to his role in Texas (2005), directed by Fausto Paravidino and he soon joined the cast of Romanzo criminale, playing a monosyllabic, enigmatic thug in a powerful portrait of a mafiosi community directed by Michele Placido.

In 2006, he acted in The Black Arrow, a TV series broadcast by Canale 5, adapted from the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, and took on four new film roles: Mio fratello è figlio unico (2007), directed by Daniele Luchetti, based on the novel Il Fasciocomunista by Antonio Pennacchi. Scamarcio won a David di Donatello nomination for Best Supporting Actor for this work. He also played in Manuale d'amore - Capitoli successivi (2007), directed by Giovanni Veronesi, Ho voglia di te (2007), directed by Luis Prieto, and Go Go Tales (2007), directed by Abel Ferrara.

In 2007, he began work on Colpo d'occhio (2008) directed by Sergio Rubini, and Italians (2009), a comedy directed by Giovanni Veronesi and Il grande sogno (2009), set in Italy in 1968, directed by Michele Placido. Eden à l'Ouest, directed by Costa-Gavras, saw Scamarcio playing an illegal immigrant-cum-innocent abroad. L'uomo nero (2009), directed by Sergio Rubini, co-starred Scamarcio's partner, Italian-Greek actress Valeria Golino, who plays his sister.