Bobby Cannavale (/ˌkænəˈvɑːli/; born May 3, 1970) is an American actor. A native of New Jersey, Cannavale gained a reputation after working in the industry for both his character actor roles and his leading man roles on stage and screen. His breakthrough came with the leading role as FDNY Paramedic Roberto "Bobby" Caffey in the NBC series Third Watch which he played from 1999 to 2001.

He received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for Will & Grace in 2005, and received further nominations for his recurring role on Nurse Jackie (2012, 2013). He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for portraying Gyp Rosetti in Boardwalk Empire in 2013. Other notable roles include in Vinyl, Mr. Robot and Master of None. He's also starred in the Amazon Prime series Homecoming (2018–2020), the Hulu miniseries, Nine Perfect Strangers (2021), and Netflix's The Watcher (2022).

Cannavale made his Broadway debut in the Theresa Rebeck's 2008 play Mauritius for which he earned a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. In 2011 he starred in Stephen Adly Guirgis comedic play The Motherfucker with the Hat earning a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination. He also portrayed Richard Roma in the 2012 revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross.

Cannavale has acted in the dramatic films The Station Agent (2003), Win Win (2011), Blue Jasmine (2013), I, Tonya (2017), Motherless Brooklyn (2019), The Irishman (2019), and Blonde (2022). He's also been in comedic films, such as Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009), The Other Guys (2010), Annie (2014), Spy (2015), and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017). He entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) portraying Jim Paxton in Ant-Man (2015), and Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018). He's voiced recurring roles for the animated Netflix series BoJack Horseman and Big Mouth.

Early life :

Cannavale was born on May 3, 1970 in Union City, New Jersey, where he grew up, the son of Isabel and Salvatore "Sal" Cannavale. His father is of Italian descent, while his mother is Cuban and moved to the U.S. in 1960. He was raised Catholic and attended St. Michael's Catholic School, where he participated in a number of extracurricular activities, including being an altar boy and member of the chorus. When he was 8, Cannavale secured the plum role of the lisping boy, Winthrop, in his school's production of The Music Man and later played a gangster in Guys and Dolls, which cemented his love for performing. Cannavale's parents divorced when he was 13 and his mother moved the family to Puerto Rico. After two years in the American territory, they settled in Margate, Florida. From 1983 to 1986, Cannavale attended Coconut Creek High School, but during his senior year, he was expelled “for being a cutup.” He then returned to New Jersey to live with his grandmother, in order to be closer to New York to launch his acting career and went to summer school to earn a diploma from Union Hill High School.