Bobby Cannavale

I always wanted to make a living as an actor living in New York. A New York actor. What's better than that?

I love taking pictures of food.

I've always felt like I'm on the outside. I think certain people judge you right away, and I've always been acutely sensitive to that. I'm fighting, whether it's accurate or not, a perception that I get of people thinking I'm dumb.

I did so many acting jobs for nothing. I was in a play that opened on Christmas Eve above a police precinct on 54th Street. Three people showed up. One of them was an agent. It was my first agent.

I always wanted to have a career that would keep me at home in New York so I can work in the theater all the time and be involved in the creative process from the ground up.

I like that message for my own children that you don't have to go with the flow, go with the crowd. That you can be your own person. You can be an individual, and that's valid, and that's important.

I don't come from an intellectual family.

I was, like, 28 or 29 when I finally was on camera for the first time.

My dad worked at a mechanical factory for 35 years. I grew up in Union City, NJ. My mother is a social worker. My sister runs a 7-Eleven, and my brother is a detox counselor. They had no predilection for the arts. But from a very young age, I really, really loved theater.

I seem to be able to get along with anybody when I work because I really enjoy being there.

The big business, Hollywood? I don't really work in that business. I peripherally work in it, but I'm not involved in it the way some people are.