Sebastian Maniscalco

Maniscalco was born on July 8, 1973, in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois to Italian immigrants; his father Salvatore Maniscalco, who worked as a hairstylist, immigrated to the United States with his family from Cefalù, Sicily at the age of 15. His mother Rose Maniscalco was a secretary and her family has origins in Naples, Campania and Sicily.[1][2][3][4] Maniscalco was raised Catholic, and at eight years old, he was an altar boy at St. Cecilia Catholic church in Mount Prospect, Illinois.[5] After moving to Los Angeles in 1998, Maniscalco began his career performing at open mics in bars and bowling alleys while working as a waiter at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, where he worked from 1998 to 2005.[6]

In 2005, he began performing regularly at The Comedy Store in West Hollywood, California.[7] Maniscalco cites Jerry Seinfeld, George Carlin, Brian Regan, John Ritter, Johnny Carson, Andrew Dice Clay, Bill Burr and Don Rickles as comedic influences.[8] Since then, he has done a half-hour for Comedy Central Presents and five hour-long specials. His first special, Sebastian Live, was released on June 2, 2009. His next three specials were aired on Showtime, with What's Wrong with People? released on January 5, 2012, Aren't You Embarrassed?, taped in Chicago, released on November 14, 2014, and Why Would You Do That?, taped at the Beacon Theatre in New York City and released in 2016.[7][9]

Maniscalco was one of four comedians featured in Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights – Hollywood to the Heartland, along with Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, and Bret Ernst. Maniscalco has been on Russell Peters' Best Night Ever, Comedy Central Presents, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Jay Leno Show, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Conan, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Additionally, he appeared in several films, such as The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, The House, Tag and Cruise, and he has a podcast titled The Pete and Sebastian Show with fellow comedian Pete Correale. As of January 2017, they have a show on Sirius XM satellite radio's Raw Dog Comedy channel 99. In 2016, Maniscalco appeared on the seventh season of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. He published his memoir Stay Hungry on February 27, 2018.[9] A Netflix special also titled Stay Hungry was released on January 15, 2019.[10]

In 2018, Maniscalco made his feature film debut, as Johnny Venere in the Academy Award-winning film Green Book.[11] Maniscalco hosted the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards on August 26.[12] In November 2019, Maniscalco appeared in Martin Scorsese's The Irishman playing "Crazy" Joe Gallo alongside Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino. He also hosted the three-part companion podcast for the film, first published on December 2, 2019, titled Behind the Irishman.[13]

Maniscalco married Lana Gomez in August 2013. The couple have two children together: a daughter named Serafina (after Maniscalco's grandmother)[3] born in May 2017,[14] and a son named Caruso born in June 2019.[15]

• Official website
• Sebastian Maniscalco on IMDb