Actor, producer, writer and director, Joe Mantegna began his career on the stage with the 1969 musical Hair. He later earned a Tony Award for portraying Richard Roma in the first American production of David Mamet's play Glengarry Glen Ross, the first of many collaborations with Mamet.

Mantegna has appeared in Three Amigos, The Godfather Part III, Forget Paris, and Up Close & Personal and other films. From 2007 to 2020 he starred in the CBS TV series Criminal Minds as FBI Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi. Since 1991, he’s had a recurring role on The Simpsons as mob boss Fat Tony. He earned Emmy Award nominations three miniseries: The Last Don, The Rat Pack, and The Starter Wife. He’s executive produced for various films and TV movies, including Corduroy, Hoods, and Lakeboat, which he also directed.

JOE MANTEGNA

When I was growing up and studying to be an actor as a young man, I'd read plays that were most often based in New York City. A lot of the writers came out the New York writing school, per se, and while I could understand it and relate to it and growing up in Chicago it wasn't that difficult for me to somewhat decipher the nuances of that, but when I read Mamet, to me, it was almost like–Yeah! I get it. This is a language I understand. It felt very comfortable to me. And I know he has told me that he has written characters with my voice in his mind as he wrote them, and so, again how lucky for me that that's the case, so it would at least make sense that I would have a certain degree of comfort and familiarity to that kind of Mamet-speak, whatever it may be. I feel very lucky that it's worked out that way that he's the writer that I ended up hooking up with.

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ON PLAYING RICHARD ROMA IN GLENGARRY, GLEN ROSS
You know what, I feel that I really didn't start to unlock until I'd done it probably for about six months, which is a good thing because I think that's a testament to the quality of the piece. And I tell that to other actors. I directed a play recently. It's a one-man show on Lenny Bruce...as good as he was even on opening night, I said you won't really feel in control of this character and this role until you're probably 200 performances into it, then you'll be able to say to yourself, Now, I feel like I'm in a groove here. And he came to me right around that time and said, "Boy, man, you were so right about that." And that's what's I learned even from doing Glengarry because I did it for a year on Broadway and toured it for about six months. It was about six months into that I really said to myself, "Wow, it's amazing how much more comfortable I feel.” How I almost feel like, it's almost like there's that thing that says that you have to do something 10,000 times before you can master it. It's part of that philosophy, you can work on something and get familiar with it, and feel like, Okay, I've got this down. I got! But if you're given the opportunity to continually do it over a longer period of time, then it becomes even more a part of you. You're able to incorporate aspects to it that you weren't even aware of when you first started. So, that was the luxury of doing that role as long as I did it, and I was grateful that I was able to do it. So part of it was just discovery, and I'm glad I had that amount of time to do it.

This is an excerpt of a 7,000 word interview which will be published across our network of participating journals in the coming weeks. This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Gabriela Garcia Astolfi. Digital Media Coordinator is Yu Young Lee. “Winter Time” was composed by Nikolas Anadolis and performed by the Athenian Trio.