Career
In 1997, Giamatti landed in his first high-profile role as Kenny "Pig Vomit" Rushton in the film adaptation of Howard Stern's Private Parts. Stern praised Giamatti's performance often on his radio program, calling for him to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Giamatti appeared in a number of supporting roles in the 1998 big-budget films including The Truman Show, Saving Private Ryan, and The Negotiator. In 1999, Giamatti played Bob Zmuda (and Tony Clifton) in Miloš Forman's Andy Kaufman biopic, Man on the Moon. Giamatti continued steadily in the early 2000s by appearing in major studio releases including Big Momma's House, Planet of the Apes, and Big Fat Liar.
In 2003, Giamatti began to earn critical acclaim after his lead role in film American Splendor. In 2004, Giamatti gained mainstream recognition and fame with the 2004 independent romantic comedy Sideways. His portrayal of a depressed writer vacationing in the Santa Barbara wine country garnered him a Golden Globe nomination and an Independent Spirit Award. Following the commercial success of Sideways, Giamatti appeared in Cinderella Man, for which he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture. In 2006, Giamatti was the lead in M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water, a supernatural thriller, followed by the animated film The Ant Bully, and Neil Burger's drama The Illusionist co-starring Edward Norton.
In 2008, Giamatti received his first Emmy Award for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie" for his title performance in the HBO miniseries John Adams, a role that also led to a Screen Actors Guild award. That same year, he starred in the independent film Pretty Bird which is a fictionalized retelling about the drama behind the invention of a rocketbelt. Giamatti was set to play the lead role, Colonel Tom Parker, in Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires, which was to co-star Ron Perlman, who replaced Bruce Campbell.
In 2012, Giamatti became the voiceover actor for Liberty Mutual insurance commercials
Read more about this topic: Paul Giamatti
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