On The Sopranos, Furio Giunta is a cold blooded killer
with a thing for the boss's wife.  But the actor who plays him,
Federico Castelluccio, has an artist's touch...

Here's Federico Castelluccio strolling into Remi, a stylish Italian restaurant in Manhattan.  This place may be a bit too rich for the blood of Mafia thug Furio Giunta, his character on HBO's The Sopranos, but Castelluccio seems at home amid the colorful Venetian-glass chandeliers and the luminous fresco of canals and gondolas.  One might expect Castelluccio to speak like the imperious Furio, who has a thick Italian accent, but when the 38-year-old actor orders a chicken salad, he sounds like a guy who just drove in from his home in Morris County, New Jersey.  That is, of course, the case.

Still, the former New York City theater actor couldn't be a better choice to play Furio--a guy who left Naples to join Tony Soprano's crew in New Jersey--because, geographically speaking, he's been there, done that.  "At my audition, [executive producer] David [Chase] asked, 'Where are you from?'"  Castelluccio recalls.  The answer:  born in Naples (to a seamstress mother and artist father).  And raised since age 3 in Paterson, New Jersey--not far from Tony's stomping grounds.  Chase liked the answer.  "The rest is history, I guess," Castelluccio says.

He then spreads a half-dozen Polaroids across the table, which show various stages of the Sopranos portraits that he was commissioned to paint for TV Guide.  CLICK HERE to see Federico's creative process.  He's been working on them in the wee hours of the morning--the only time he can spare in his hectic schedule of filming, promoting the show and auditioning for future acting jobs.  "Basically, I live on four hours of sleep," he says.

He painted the portraits in his home studio, where he surrounds himself with serious art.  There are 2,000-year-old Roman busts and 17th-century paintings, pieces from Egypt and Italy.  "To know that you can actually have [museum-quality art]," he says, "and be inspired by it in your studio is amazing."

In fact, Castelluccio, who is single, is first and foremost a fine artist, a graduate of New York City's School of Visual Arts.  His paintings hang in private and public collections (Whoopi Goldberg owns a Castelluccio self-portrait).  The typically fetch from $15,000 to $20,000 per painting, but he has also been known to give his work away.  "A number of years ago, my friend asked me to design an album cover for his rock band, Platinum," he says.  When his buddy could only afford $500, the artist took pity and offered one of the paintings in his studio.  "He chose this surreal self-portrait where I'm wearing a loincloth and my skin is blue," he says with a laugh.

Castelluccio is now assembling paintings for an exhibit next year.  (Furio, he says, will be out of commission for a while on The Sopranos.)  He also has an Italian restaurant--Attilio's Pasta Kitchen in New Brunswick, New Jersey--which he owns with four friends, to keep him busy.  And if Castelluccio tires of any of these occupations, he could always take up casting.  "I brought in three people to read" for the Sopranos casting directors recently, he says, "and they chose two."  Not bad for a regular guy from New Jersey.

CLICK HERE to see Federico's creative process.