Vincent D'Onofrio

His older siblings are Antoinette (born 1956) and Elizabeth (born 1957), an actress and drama coach residing in Fort Myers Beach, Florida.

He was raised in Hawaii and Colorado during his early years.

D'Onofrio's parents divorced when he was young; his mother later married George Meyer.

He became stepbrother to Guy and Connie, Meyer's children from a previous marriage.

The family relocated to the Hialeah, Florida area.

D'Onofrio has described himself as a shy boy who spent "a lot of time in my room, staying in my head", later became interested in magic and sleight of hand, tricks he learned from Cuban entertainers who owned a small magic shop.

In his teens, he worked backstage in set building and sound production at a number of community theaters run by his father.

He graduated from Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School.

After graduating from high school, D'Onofrio started to appear on stage.

During an 18-month stint at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, he was involved with small, community-theater productions.

He later studied method acting at the American Stanislavsky Theater and the Actors Studio, under coaches Sonia Moore and Sharon Chatten, which landed him his first paid role in off-Broadway's This Property Is Condemned.

He went on to appear in a number of their productions, including Of Mice and Men and Sexual Perversity in Chicago.

D'Onofrio continued his career by performing in many New York University student productions while also working as a bouncer at the Hard Rock Cafe, a bodyguard for Robert Plant and Yul Brynner and a deliveryman.

Vincent Philip D'Onofrio (born June 30, 1959) is an American actor and filmmaker.

He is known for his supporting and leading roles in both film and television.

He has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

D'Onofrio was born on June 30, 1959, in Brooklyn, New York.

He is of Italian descent, with ancestors from Naples.

His parents Gennaro and Phyllis D'Onofrio met while Gennaro was stationed in Hawaii with the U.S. Air Force.

Gennaro was trained as an interior decorator but spent most of his spare time in amateur theater.

Vincent is the youngest of three siblings.

In 1984, he made his Broadway debut as Nick Rizzoli in Open Admissions.

In 1986, D'Onofrio took on the role often considered the defining moment in his acting career, as Pvt. Leonard Lawrence, an overweight, clumsy Marine recruit in the movie Full Metal Jacket.

On a tip from friend Matthew Modine, D'Onofrio was urged to send audition tapes to director Stanley Kubrick, in England.

Four tapes later, D'Onofrio landed the role.

Originally, the character of Pvt. Lawrence had been written as a "skinny ignorant redneck"; however, Kubrick believed the role would have more impact if the character were big and clumsy.

D'Onofrio gained 70 lbs for the role, bringing his weight to 280 lbs.

While filming an obstacle course scene for the movie, D'Onofrio injured his left knee, compounded by the excessive weight, which required surgical reconstruction.

Over the course of nine months after filming of Full Metal Jacket was completed, D'Onofrio lost nearly all the weight he had gained for his role.

His roles include Private Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence in Full Metal Jacket (1987), Edgar the Bug in Men in Black (1997) and Men in Black: The Series (1997–2001), Carl Stargher in The Cell (2000), New York City Police Detective Robert Goren in Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001–11), Victor "Vic" Hoskins in Jurassic World (2015), and Wilson Fisk / Kingpin in four television series of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

He went on to play Dawson, the owner of Dawson's Garage, in Adventures in Babysitting (1987).

He appears in one scene near the end of the film.

In 1988, he was cast in another supporting role in the film Mystic Pizza, playing the fiancé of Lili Taylor's character.

In the film, which was Julia Roberts' breakout film, he was billed under his full name Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio.

In 1989 he played a supporting role as Young Gar in The Blood of Heroes (Australian title: Salute of the Jugger) beside Joan Chen and Rutger Hauer where he is also billed under his full name.

In 1992, he appeared in Robert Altman's The Player, as an aspiring screenwriter.

D'Onofrio continued to play a wide variety of minor or supporting roles, including the father of a saint in Nancy Savoca's Household Saints (1993), director Orson Welles in Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994), farmer Edgar and the evil "Bug" that possesses him from Men in Black (1997), a man who claims to be from the future in Happy Accidents (2000), and the serial killer Carl Stargher, opposite Jennifer Lopez's character in The Cell (2000).

In 1997, he made a move to television and received an Emmy nomination for his appearance as John Lange in the Homicide: Life on the Street episode "Subway".

In 1999, he turned down a role in The Sopranos.

D'Onofrio portrayed leftist radical Abbie Hoffman in Steal This Movie in 2000, starring Janeane Garofalo as his wife.