Giovanni Ribisi was born on December 17, 1974, in Los Angeles. This actor has had a number of excellent film roles and notable guest spots on television shows, from the late 1980s to the present time.
Unbeknownst to most of the movie-going public, Giovanni is a member of The Church of Scientology, a popular (if dubious) pseudo-religious cult for celebrities. Despite this, I have a great deal of respect for him as an actor. He brings a degree of innocence and kindness to his roles, even when the role is touched with darker emotions. Darker emotions do tend to color his roles. From the medic, Irwin Wade, in Saving Private Ryan, to the scarred, haunted mechanic Buddy Cole in The Gift, to Darren Peter Oswald in a string of guest appearances on the "The X-Files," he has a penchant for playing kind characters with emotional trama or destructive personalities, and yet, while other actors come off as psychopaths in roles of this kind, he simply comes off as... troubled. He's a character actor before anything else, professionally.
He co-starred with his non-identical twin sister, actress Marissa Ribisi, in her directorial debut Some Girl. His mother Gay Ribisi is a Hollywood producer, and his older sister Jade Ribisi is also involved in the movie business. He's also an in-law of avant-garde musician Beck Hansen, through Marissa's marriage.
Giovanni was married to actress Mariah O'Brien in 1997, and had a daughter named Lucia with her before their divorce in 2001.
Selected Filmography
Filmography excerpts culled from the IMDb.