The ultimate character actor — and guide to Italy’s food and culture — reflects on early-career frustration with being asked to portray stereotypes of Italian-Americans, and how it led him to his breakout film 'Big Night'; the pros and cons of a career in which he has tended to play small parts in large projects and large parts in small projects; and the little-known story of how his food-centric shows, for which he has won three Emmys, grew out of a battle with oral cancer that forced him to eat his own food through a tube.

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