You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (May 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the Italian article.
Machine translation, like DeepLorGoogle Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Italian Wikipedia article at [[:it:Diego Abatantuono]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|it|Diego Abatantuono}} to the talk page.
Abatantuono was born in Milan to a father of Apulian origin and a mother from Como. The latter worked as a wardrober in a Milanese jazz and later cabaret club, Derby, whose owner was Abatantuono's uncle. He started to work at Derby first in lighting, then as an artistic director and later as an actor.
His first approach to cinema took place thanks to the comedic group I Gatti di Vicolo Miracoli, who brought him with them to audition. Here he was noticed by director Romolo Guerrieri, who offered him a part in the film Young, Violent, Dangerous. He participated in comedies such as "Saxofone", Fantozzi contro tutti, then he returned to work at Derby where he was discovered by TV showman, film director and talent scout Renzo Arbore, who cast him as "Don Gabriele" in his 1980 controversial film Il Pap'occhio.
In the mid-1980s he abandoned the character who had given him success, and for some time he devoted himself to theatrical performances. But it was Pupi Avati who led him into the turning point, having understood his potential as an actor, even a dramatic one. Avati will include him in the diptych Christmas Present (1986). For his performance in this film, Abatantuono won a Nastro d'Argento for Best supporting Actor.[2] The film had a sequel, Christmas Rematch.[3]
In Luigi Comencini's A Boy from Calabria (1987), he plays a poor farmer who wishes his eldest son will graduate from school to get out of his miserable condition, and does not understand the boy's passion for running. After this role, Abatantuono founded his own production company, Colorado Film, thanks to which he reaffirmed himself as one of the most interesting actors of the new Italian cinema, with Giuseppe Bertolucci's I cammelli (1988) and Gabriele Salvatores' film cycle, which consecrated him definitively: Marrakech Express (1989), Turné (1990), the Oscar-winning Mediterraneo (1991), Puerto Escondido (1992), Nirvana (1997), Amnèsia (2002), I'm Not Scared (2003), Happy Family (2010) and Volare (2019).
Abatantuono is also a popular figure of Italian television shows. He is well known to be a long-time A.C. Milan fan.
