[1] Winner of ‘Best Actor under 30’ at the 2004 UBU Awards, the maximum prize for Italian theatre, onstage he has been Orpheus, Danton, Perceval, Cupid, Hamlet and Satan, playing three different roles in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House by Andrée Ruth Shammah in 2016.

[2] Despite his stuttering[3] and partial blindness he became a star of the big screen including a wide range of activities as author and entrepreneur for TV, cinema, theatre, magazines and musical shows; between 2006 and 2008 he published the best-seller trilogy Tuttalpiù muoio (At Worst I’ll die), E lasciamole cadere queste stelle (Let these stars fall) and Peggio che diventare famoso (Worse than becoming famous) in which he recalls his humble origins and transform youth troubles into a powerful and intense love for life, through a vividly ironic and phantasmagoric lens.

His 2009 Shakespeare adaptation Il popolo non ha il pane, diamogli le brioche (People don’t have bread, let's give them sweet rolls), written, directed by and starring him as Hamlet, was sold out for two years and legitimated his name as one of the most acclaimed and talented authors of Italian theatre.

He played dramatic roles in Vallanzasca, Angel of Evil (2011), the period drama Rust (2011) alongside comedies like Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia (2012).

The actor completed his English-language debut acting alongside George Clooney in Anton Corbijn's action film The American.