Tony Nardi (born 1958) is an Italian-Canadian actor, playwright and theatre director based in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

, who has performed on stage and in film and television. Fluent in four languages; he has appeared in French, Italian and English-language productions, including over 60 plays and 70 films and television series. He won the

Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television presents an annual award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role to the best performance by a lead actor in a Canadian film.Maria Topalovich, ''And the Genie Goes To...: Celebrating 50 Years o ...

twice, for '' La Sarrasine'' (which he co-wrote) and '' My Father's Angel'', with three additional nominations. His series of monologues, ''Two Letters...And Counting!'', was nominated for a

Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play is an annual award celebrating achievements in Toronto theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to prese ...

and earned Nardi a nomination for the

Siminovitch Prize in Theatre The Siminovitch Prize is Canada's largest theatre award recognizing excellence in mid-career directors, playwrights and designers. $100,000 is awarded annually, and for recipients, who are given the public recognition and financial resources, it i ...

long list. He has worked with

Théâtre français de Toronto Théâtre français de Toronto (TfT) is a French-language theatre company presenting repertoire as well as original works in Ontario, Canada since 1967. Shows have been performed at the Berkeley Street Theatre since 1990. The company is a registe ...

, Persephone Theatre, Great Canadian Theatre Company, and the Stratford Festival. He has also taught Acting and Directing courses at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

and

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...

Career

Acting

Nardi made his stage debut in a 1978 production of ''Solzhenitsyn'', directed by Alexander Hausvater. Since then, he has performed in over 60 plays including ''For Those in the Peril on the Sea'', ''Sandinista'', ''

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and fina ...

'', ''La Storia Calvino'', ''

A Flea in Her Ear ''A Flea in Her Ear'' (french: La Puce à l'oreille) is a play by Georges Feydeau written in 1907, at the height of the Belle Époque. The author called it a vaudeville, but in Anglophone countries, where it is the most popular of Feydeau's play ...

'' and ''The Lesson''. He received a

Montreal Gazette The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of th ...

Critic's Award in 1979 for his role in an adaptation of George Orwell’s ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Artistic Excellence – Collective – in 1985 for ''La Storia Calvino'', garnered a

Dora Award The Dora Mavor Moore Award (also known as the Dora Award) is an award presented annually by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts which honours theatre, dance and opera productions in Toronto. Named after Dora Mavor Moore, who helped estab ...

nomination in 2001 for his role in ''A Flea in Her Ear'', and a

in 2002 for Outstanding Performance for his role in ''The Lesson''. In 2007 he received a Best Actor Thespis Award for ''Two Letters''. His movie roles include '' Caffè Italia, Montréal'', '' Concrete Angels'', '' Cruising Bar'', '' La Sarrasine'', '' An Imaginary Tale'', '' Mr. Aiello (La Déroute)'', '' My Father's Angel'', '' Almost America'', ''

Corbo ''Corbo'' is a Canadian drama film from Quebec, written and directed by Mathieu Denis.

'' and ''

Kiss Me Like a Lover ''Kiss Me Like a Lover'' (french: Embrasse-moi comme tu m'aimes) is a Canadian drama film from Quebec, directed by André Forcier and released in 2016. Set in Montreal in the 1940s, the film stars Émile Schneider as Pierre Sauvageau, a young man ...

(Embrasse-moi comme tu m'aimes)'', and his TV credits include ''Rossini's Ghost'', ''Galileo: On the Shoulders of Giants'', ''Bonanno: A Godfather's Story'', ''Almost America'', ''

Il Duce Canadese ''Il Duce Canadese'', aka ''Il duce canadese: Le Mussolini canadien'' (Canada: French title) is a Canadian television miniseries, which aired on CBC Television in 2004. The series revolves around the Alvaro family, an Italian-Canadian family in ...

'' and ''Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis''. A four-time Genie Award nominee, he has won twice for Best Actor for roles in '' La Sarrasine'' (1992) and '' My Father's Angel'' (2001), for which he had also received a Best Actor award at the Sonoma Wine and Country Film Festival in 2000. He received the Guy L’Écuyer Award for his role in ''La Déroute'' in 1998. In 2010, the year marking the 30th Genie Awards, he made the Academy's 30th Anniversary Top 10 list in the Lead Actor category in Canadian cinema – a ranking based on the number of wins and nominations over the 30-year period. In television, he received a Gemini Award nomination in 2006 for his role in ''

'' and a Best Actor Award at the

Geneva International Film Festival The Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF) (french: link=no, Festival international du film de Genève) is an annual film festival founded in 1995. The festival, previously called the Geneva International Film Festival Tous Ecrans, was renamed ...

, Tous Écrans/All Screens, in 1999, for his role in Ken Finkleman's '' Foolish Heart''.

Writing

Nardi is co-author with Vincent Ierfino of the play ''La Storia dell'Emigrante''. Written in Calabrian, English and French, the play was the first in Canada (on record) written by an Italian-Canadian and addressing an Italian-Canadian reality. In 1982 ''La Storia dell'Emigrante'' received the first James Bullet Award for Best Original Canadian play at the Ontario Multicultural Theatre Festival. ''A Modo Suo: A Fable'', written in Calabrian in 1990, received a

nomination for Best Play. An English translation was published in its entirety in the ''Canadian Theatre Review'' in 2000. He collaborated on the screenplays for ''La Sarrasine'' and ''La Déroute''. ''Two Letters'' (2006), two theatrical monologues based on two actual letters sent to a film/television producer and two theatre critics, received a 2007

Nomination for Outstanding New Play. "...And Counting!" - a postmortem of "Two Letters" and journey into the state of culture and funding in Canada was presented in 2008 in Toronto and Montreal, at Factory Theatre and McGill University, respectively and in 2010 at the Festival TransAmeriques in Montreal. In 2008 he was nominated for a

for playwriting. "Letter One", "Letter Two", and "...And Counting!" were filmed in front of a live audience and released respectively in 2011, 2013 and 2014. "Letter One" was screened at Les Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Montreal in 2011, at Hot Docs in Toronto in 2012 and the Italian Contemporary Film Festival at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2012. "Letter Two" was screened at the Italian Contemporary Film Festival at TIFF in 2013. "...And Counting!" was screened at the 2014 Italian Contemporary Italian Film Festival at TIFF.

Academia

Nardi began teaching acting and directing courses in Autumn of 2017. He has instructed courses at the

and

University of Toronto Scarborough The University of Toronto Scarborough, also known as U of T Scarborough or UTSC, is one of the three campuses that make up the tri-campus system of the University of Toronto. Located in Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the campus is set up ...

, and directed courses at

. He is a PhD candidate in Performance at the University of Toronto, specializing in “the impact of cultural background and first language on performance in Canadian theatre, film and TV."

Honors

In 1992, Nardi received the

125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal The 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal (french: Médaille commémorative du 125e anniversaire de la Confédération du Canada) is a commemorative medal struck by the Royal Canadian Mint to commemorate the 125th anniversary of ...

, awarded to Canadians for significant contribution to their fellow citizens, to their community, or to Canada.

Personal life

Nardi is multilingual. His primary languages are French and English, but he is also fluent in both

Standard Italian Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...

and Calabrian. Nardi lived in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

with Janne Mortil, his former partner, in 1999-2000.

Filmography

Film

Television

Awards and nominations

References

External links

*
Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia EntryFull text of "Two Letters ...And Counting!"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nardi, Tony 1958 births 20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Canadian male actors 21st-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights 21st-century Canadian male actors Canadian male film actors Canadian male stage actors Canadian male television actors Canadian male voice actors Canadian people of Calabrian descent Dora Mavor Moore Award winners Italian emigrants to Canada Living people People from Calabria Best Actor Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners Canadian male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Canadian male writers 21st-century Canadian male writers