Vincent Gallo

Vincent Gallo Bio

Vincent Gallo (born April 11, 1961) is an American actor, filmmaker, painter, and musician known for his independent, often controversial cinema and multidisciplinary work. He won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his non-speaking role in Essential Killing (2010) and has been linked with nominations for the Palme d’Or, the Golden Lion, and the Bronze Horse. Gallo began as a painter and musician in New York, rising to prominence with Buffalo ’66 (1998), which he wrote, directed, and starred in, and with The Brown Bunny (2003). His career spans acting in films such as Goodfellas and 2 Days in New York, as well as directing, composing, and modeling. He has lived in Arizona and maintains a devoted cult following for his idiosyncratic, independent approach to cinema.

Early Life and Background

Vincent Gallo was born on April 11, 1961, in Buffalo, New York, to Vincent Gallo Sr. and Janet Gallo. He grew up with an older brother named Charles and a younger sister named Janine. His parents are Sicilian and worked as hairdressers, with his father later retiring to pursue gambling. Gallo has described his parents as dishonest people and has spoken at length about a difficult childhood, including accounts that his father was physically abusive toward him as a child.

Gallo was raised Catholic and made his First Communion in 1969. As a young person, he became fascinated with music and secretly hid a guitar under his bed after his mother forbade him from owning one. After graduating from Sweet Home High School in 1978, Gallo left Buffalo at the age of 16 and moved to New York City, where he took various jobs, including working in a hi-fi guitar shop and as a restaurant dishwasher.

In his teens and early twenties, Gallo experimented with many pursuits beyond school. He has claimed to have worked briefly for the local mafia in Buffalo performing small crimes such as carjacking and shoplifting before stepping away from that world. He has also said he raced motorbikes professionally in Formula II events during the 1980s. By the early 1980s, Gallo had become a successful painter in the New York art scene, eventually crossing into music and acting.

Path to Acting

During his artistic period in the 1980s, when he worked as a musician and painter in New York City, Gallo began experimenting with film. He created the short film If You Feel Froggy, Jump and appeared in the 1981 film Downtown 81 with painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 1984, Gallo acted in the No Wave film The Way It Is or Eurydice in the Avenues, working alongside actors Steve Buscemi and Rockets Redglare.

Throughout the late 1980s, Gallo landed a starring role in Doc’s Kingdom (1987), directed by Robert Kramer, and played a small part in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. In 1993, he gained notice in Europe for Emir Kusturica’s Arizona Dream, where he played a major supporting role alongside Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway. That same year, he appeared in The House of the Spirits, and by the mid-1990s, he was co-starring in films including The Perez Family, Abel Ferrara’s The Funeral, and Claire Denis’s Nénette et Boni.

Vincent Gallo Career

Early Career (1981-1997)

Gallo’s first notable work as an actor came in the early 1980s with experimental films like Downtown 81 and The Way It Is. He later played a starring role in Doc’s Kingdom and earned recognition in Europe for his supporting work in Arizona Dream (1993), The House of the Spirits (1993), and The Funeral (1996). Working with directors such as Emir Kusturica, Robert Kramer, and Martin Scorsese, Gallo built a reputation for his raw, idiosyncratic performances.

During this period, Gallo continued to balance film with music and painting, releasing music with bands such as Gray, which he shared with Jean-Michel Basquiat, and performing at New York clubs including Max’s Kansas City, CBGB, Hurrahs, and the Mudd Club. He also began developing his first directorial projects, eventually making the drama Buffalo ’66 for $1.5 million, in which he served as writer, director, lead actor, and composer.

Breakthrough (1998-2009)

In 1998, Gallo released his directorial debut film, Buffalo ’66, which received positive critical reception and was nominated for Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. The film gained him a solid fan base and remains a defining work of late-1990s American independent cinema. Gallo also continued acting in projects such as Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby and Trouble Every Day (2001), the latter directed by Claire Denis.

In 2003, Gallo starred in and directed The Brown Bunny, which chronicles a motorcycle racer’s cross-country road trip and co-starred Chloë Sevigny. The film received an overwhelmingly negative response at its Cannes premiere and became a media scandal, with critic Roger Ebert famously calling it the worst film in the history of Cannes. A re-edited version later earned a more favorable reception. In 2009, Francis Ford Coppola cast Gallo as the lead in Tetro, a drama set in Argentina.

Beyond his own films, Gallo built a varied resume with supporting roles in films including Palookaville (1995), Stranded (2001), and 2 Days in New York (2012). He has also directed music videos for songs by John Frusciante, Lit, Glassjaw, and L’Arc-en-Ciel, further showing his interest in moving between mediums.

Notable Works and Milestones

Gallo’s signature works include Buffalo ’66 (1998), The Brown Bunny (2003), and Essential Killing (2010), the last of which earned him the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. Empire later listed Buffalo ’66 as the 36th-greatest independent film ever made, while the French magazine Les Cahiers du Cinéma voted The Brown Bunny one of the ten best films of its year. Gallo also won a devoted cult following in Japan, where the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art mounted a retrospective of his paintings, drawings, and photographs.

Vincent Gallo Award Nominations

Vincent Gallo has received several major nominations across his career in film. His directorial debut Buffalo ’66 was nominated for Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards, and his third feature Promises Written in Water was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. He has also been linked with nominations for the Palme d’Or and the Bronze Horse, confirming his standing on the international festival circuit even when his work has divided critics.

Vincent Gallo Awards Won

Vincent Gallo won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 67th Venice International Film Festival in 2010 for his non-speaking role in Essential Killing. Gallo did not attend the ceremony to accept the award in person, leaving the duty to the film’s director, Jerzy Skolimowski, who tried to get the actor to reveal himself, leading the audience in a chant of his name.

Vincent Gallo Family

Vincent Gallo was born to Vincent Gallo Sr. and Janet Gallo, both Sicilian hairdressers who raised him in Buffalo, New York. He grew up alongside an older brother, Charles, and a younger sister, Janine. His father later retired from hairdressing to become a gambler, and Gallo has spoken publicly about a difficult childhood shaped by his parents’ strict approach to parenting.

Personal Life

Gallo has lived in Arizona since 2018, when he purchased a $3.25 million mansion in the Catalina Foothills area near Tucson, later moving to a property within a gated community. He previously owned two Los Angeles houses designed by modernist architect John Lautner, as well as a condo at Trump Tower. Gallo is a teetotaler and a collector of vinyl records and pre-war sound equipment. In 1984, he was briefly married to a woman for ten weeks. He has also maintained close friendships with figures including musician John Frusciante, the late guitarist Johnny Ramone, and actress Milla Jovovich.