After a steamy, mutually satisfying fling on “Boardwalk Empire,” Bobby Cannavale and HBO have decided to take their relationship a step further.
HBO this week ordered a series starring Cannavale, who won an Emmy for his portrayal of fictional Prohibition-era gangster Gyp Rosetti on season three of “Boardwalk Empire,” to play Richie Finestra, a music executive who’s desperately trying to steer his struggling record label back to prosperity in the drug- and sex-fueled punk and disco scene of 1970s New York.
Martin Scorsese, who directed the pilot of the yet-to-be-titled series, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger and “Boardwalk Empire” creator Terence Winter are three of the show’s executive producers, and main cast members include Andrew Dice Clay, Ray Romano, Olivia Wilde and Juno Temple.
Cannavale says having such notable Hollywood names attached to this project is yet another sign that cable-TV shows have gained ground on film with respect to scope and quality.
“The (TV) medium itself has changed,” says Cannavale, 44. “Cable has really helped. I mean, the role on ‘Boardwalk Empire’ really helped me in terms of being seen as a film actor, because it was pretty much a film.
“That’s why you got Steven Soderbergh shooting ‘The Knick,’ that’s why (Scorsese) shoots ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and the pilot I just did with him for HBO. You see a lot more film people get involved in the medium because the quality’s there.”
The Cuban/Italian-American Cannavale will be a fixture in movie theaters this holiday season beginning Dec. 19, when the latest film adaptation of the Broadway musical “Annie” opens.
Cannavale plays Guy, the insanely ambitious political adviser of billionaire mayoral candidate Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx).
The movie also features 11-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis, an Oscar nominee for 2012’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” as an African-American Annie.
“I liked the idea of modernizing this story, making it contemporary, making it more emblematic of different cultures and the different ways that cultures have advanced and really sort of come into our own,” says Cannavale, whose girlfriend, Rose Byrne, plays Stacks’ personal assistant, Grace Farrell.
“For Guy, it’s all about him. I mean, this is a guy who claims he got (former North Korean dictator) Kim Jon-il elected.”
