Stanley Tucci is one of Hollywood’s most versatile actors.
He’s most known for playing Meryl Streep’s sidekick in The Devil Wears Prada , the creepy killer in The Lovely Bones , and the eccentric Ceaser in The Hunger Games .
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Acting aside, he’s also a very interesting person. Just wait until you learn who his famous sister-in-law is! Keep reading for more random facts.
1. His first wife died of cancer.
Kathryn “Kate,” whom he had three kids with, passed away in 2009 from breast cancer.
Stanley felt a lot of guilt over her death. “We tried everything we could do to save her. I wish that I could have done more.”
2. He’s married to Emily Blunt’s sister.
Since Stanley and Emily worked together on The Devil Wears Prada , it was Emily who introduced them!
Tucci married the literary agent in a quiet ceremony in 2012.
But because he lost his first wife, he was very nervous over how people would react to him and Felicity.
“I panicked instantly afterwards,” he told U.K. paper The Times .
“It was very hard to go on vacations at first, really hard to go with Felicity someplace. I felt guilty. It’s horrible.”
3. He’s Italian.
It’s where he gets his love of cooking from, but the Italian-American actor has said that it took him years to avoid being typecast.
“When I started out, with the Italians the roles were generic and the person was a mafioso and they were evil.”
“Italians were always innately evil. We know this not to be the case,” he continued.
“It was insulting having grown up as an Italian-American — both sides Italian — and there was a certain point where I just stopped taking those roles.”
4. He’s very close friends with Meryl Streep.
The pair starred together in The Devil Wears Prada and Julie & Julia .
One time, they even cooked together in preparation for the latter. “I said, “I don’t mean to get too methody on you, Meryl, but we need to cook together.”
He told *The Guardian* how they went out shopping, then made blanquette de veau and a tarte tatin at her apartment.
He said that Meryl is not unlike her famous cook’s character, as she is a wonderful cook.
5. He used to work as a bartender.
He bartended in an Italian restaurant when he was just 19.
While he did, he would observe a lot of different things, like which soap-opera stars and cops who wouldn’t pay. Maybe this people-watching even helped his acting.
6. He’s a cookbook author.
It certainly helps to have a wife who’s a literary agent!
The food aficionado first released The Tucci Cookbook . It comes with more than 200 Italian food recipes that have been a part of his family for years.
Then, in 2014, he released *The Tucci Table: Cooking with Family and Friends*.
He also helped create the Finch Tavern, a restaurant that specialized in Italian cuisine in Croton Falls, New York.
But it has since closed down.
7. He’s responsible for Caesar Flickerman’s teeth in *The Hunger Games*.
Yep, those freakishly straight pearly whites were all his idea!
He told The Hollywood Reporter that he was “very, very involved” in developing Caesar’s look. In addition to the teeth, he suggested the deep tan.
8. He has five kids.
He had three kids with his late wife, Kate: Camilla, 18, and twins Nicolo and Isabel, 20.
Then, soon after marrying Felicity, they welcomed their son Matteo and then a daughter, Emilia Giovanna, on April 19, 2018.
9. He’s 5’8.
There are many celebs in Hollywood who are shorter than you thought , and Stanley is one of them.
In comparison, his wife is 5’7. This means that Tucci looks immediately smaller when she wears heels.
10. He’s also a writer and director.
He wrote, co-directed, and starred in Big Night , a movie about his number one passion: food.
The premise was about two brothers who have to save their restaurant by making the best meal of their lives.
11. He earned an Oscar nomination for his role in *The Lovely Bones*.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you need to. The actor is barely recognizable as he tackled the killer of young girls.
While he earned high praise for the role, he told The Standard that it was a difficult role for him to do.
“I knew it would be painful and I can’t read books or see movies in which children are harmed,” he said.
“Not that they shouldn’t be made — just that I can’t watch them.”
12. He lives in London.
As a proud New Yorker, it probably wasn’t easy moving to London for his wife.
But he did it and he even got his driver’s license! This may not sound like a big deal, but they drive on the right side of the car there.
“Oh my God, I’d been driving for 39 years. You have to basically unlearn all these little habits that you have,” he said.
Stanley’s London move is pretty ironic since Emily Blunt and John Krasinski are now living in Brooklyn.
