After nearly 40 years in Hollywood, Giovanni Ribisi found a second career — behind the camera

Just over a decade ago, Giovanni Ribisi was at a crossroads.

The Los Angeles native, who broke through in Steven Spielberg's 1998 blockbuster "Saving Private Ryan," had just sold his small visual effects company, Stereo D, which he founded with partners in 2008. Despite his prolific acting career, he was feeling unmoored.

"There was a moment for me where I kind of went, 'Well, what do I want to do with my life?'" Ribisi tells Business Insider.

Soon enough, he found his answer. He'd always been interested in the technical aspects of movies: As a child actor from a showbiz family who got his start on sitcoms like "My Two Dads," "Blossom," and "The Wonder Years," he often found the camera and the crew more fascinating than the set itself.

"That was always the thing that I would be focusing on more than acting, really — what the camera was doing or what it wasn't doing, or the lighting," says Ribisi, 49.

Now, after years of quietly building his technical skills working on music videos and commercials — all while continuing to act in massive franchises like James Cameron's "Avatar" series and Kevin Costner's "Horizon" saga — the star has made his feature film debut as a cinematographer.

Ribisi is behind the electric visuals of JT Mollner's "Strange Darling." The critically acclaimed thriller stars Kyle Gallner and Willa Fitzgerald as two people involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse (with a delicious twist).

But it wasn't an easy yes to get Mollner to give a key behind-the-camera role to an actor better known for being in front of it.

After Mollner and Ribisi met and bonded over their shared love of celluloid film, the "Strange Darling" script landed on Ribisi's desk in September 2021. He devoured it within hours.

"I called him just gushing," recalls Ribisi. He signed on as a producer before a bidding war landed the movie with Miramax. Then, he approached Mollner about letting him do the cinematography, too.

"Of course, he was somewhat skeptical," the actor says. "So I showed him my reel and all the things that I had been doing, and he just committed and he took a chance on me."

For the latest interview in Business Insider's "Role Play" series, Ribisi revisits the evolution of his career both behind and in front of the camera, from going to boot camp for "Saving Private Ryan" to staying up for three days straight doing 3D work on "Avatar."

On getting a taste of failure as a child actor and pulling all-nighters to do 3D work on 'Avatar' One of Ribisi's earliest roles was playing Cory Kupkus in "My Two Dads." Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank

Is there a role in your career that got away, or one that you really wanted and almost had, but in the end didn't get?

There was a sitcom thing, I think that's the first thing that pops to my mind.

I was, I think, 15 years old, and I think I also really needed the money, and somebody else got it. And it was like, "Oh, damn it." The rejection.

I think it was probably the 50th no I had on something, where I was like, "Oh, this is real. I might really fail at this kind of thing."

You did some of the 3D work on "Avatar" through that company you sold, right?

Yeah. That was a long time ago. The original "Avatar" we did in the 11th hour, a couple weeks or months before that movie was released, we went in and did some work on it.

Ribisi as Parker Selfridge with Sigourney Weaver in "Avatar." 20th Century Fox

You were of course in that movie and in the sequels, but from what I read, it seemed like James Cameron didn't initially even realize it was your company that was doing the work.

Yeah, possibly! At the end of the day, he didn't want it to be his decision as far as choosing the company that was doing the work. He obviously just wanted the best company or people for the job and to get done what he needed to get done.

There were moments where I was up for three days straight trying to hit deadlines. That was just a really proud thing that we had the privilege to be involved in that, and that the work that we were doing could live up to those standards.

On trapping himself in a hotel room to learn Italian monologues and not remembering filming 'Friends' Ribisi played Phoebe's brother Frank Jr. in several episodes of "Friends." Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

"Strange Darling" has a lot of gnarly scenes. Is there something that sticks out as sort of the most challenging scene that you've ever had to film personally?

Wow. I don't know. I get so nervous, sometimes it's funny. You can have three words that you have to say in a scene, and it becomes the most nerve-wracking thing you've ever done. There was a job a long time ago where I was playing a Carabinieri officer and I had to learn and speak Italian with an Italian accent, and I also had to be an interpreter for another actor.

So it was just monologues. And I remember it was just, I think I was trapped in a hotel room for seven or eight days straight, and I realized I hadn't come out of the room just trying to learn and speak and record. That was definitely challenging for me.

That's funny, because I think I was expecting you to say something related to "Saving Private Ryan."

Oh, really? Oh, wow.

Ribisi in "Saving Private Ryan." CBS via Getty Images

Yeah, just the brutality of that death scene. And obviously, such a memorable moment in your career.

I guess so. Yeah. I mean, I was doing so many different things at that time, and it's funny, it really kind of depends on what city you're in or what country you're in, because I remember when we shot the church sequence, the church scene where my character was talking about their mother and all that, we shot that, I believe that was seven o'clock in the morning, and then I went from there at around three o'clock in the afternoon to go do a "Friends" episode. Then from there, I went to go work on another movie that was a night shoot.

I don't think I realized timing-wise that you were also doing "Friends" at the same time as "Saving Private Ryan," which was a very different vibe, I can imagine.

Yeah. Very different. It's funny, I don't remember doing "Friends." I think I did eight or nine episodes, and I was always working on something else.

So my experience wasn't a full-blown rehearsal schedule. I would rush over in the nick of time — and this is true — and I get a script and try to just short-term memory it and then go on and do it. Suddenly there'd be this audience there, and then I'd be done.

And so people come up and they quote certain things, and I'm like, "What are you talking about?"

"Saving Private Ryan" was the biggest set you'd been on at that point. What was it like being on a set of that scale and with such a big impressive ensemble cast?

It was just incredible. Working with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and the other cast members who, a lot of them were friends of mine from just being actors in Los Angeles. The biggest thing that I think, and I would probably speak for all of the cast members involved, was the boot camp experience that we all had before we started shooting.

We spent two weeks bivouacking in the English countryside with — I believe he was actually a colonel, but we were supposed to call him a captain, Dale Dye. And that was an experience, aside from the movie and aside from what an incredible profound experience this was at 21 years old. All of that, that was a life experience.

I mean, that was something that he was giving you tools for, just as far as being able to survive out there and go through that kind of extremity with a bunch of actors. That was really an incredible experience.

On hesitating to commit to an hour-long drama like 'Sneaky Pete' and his infamous 'Ted' dance scene Ribisi played the lead role in "Sneaky Pete" for three seasons. Sony Pictures TV

Besides recurring on "Friends" and the sitcoms you did as a kid, you hadn't really done too much TV as an adult actor before "Sneaky Pete." You've mentioned you were initially resistant to doing hour-long dramas for TV. Why?

Not for any other reason than just the time commitment, particularly for the showrunner. Being a television showrunner for an hourlong show is just the hardest job, I think, in entertainment or any visual motion picture. You have to fight to have a life.

And then starring on one as an actor, I think that's 80-hour weeks, because you're not just working 14 to 16 hours a day on the set. You have to go home and learn all the pages, eight pages for the next thing that you're shooting.

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about it. I'm really not, because you have to know that's what you're signing up for, and you have to take responsibility for it and try to do the best you can and maintain an interest not to not get beat down by that.

You also teamed up with Bryan Cranston for that, which must've been cool.

I think Bryan Cranston is truly one of the great American actors that we have, and just to watch him work and be around him is just incredible. He's also a smarty pants. He's a smart person. If I could work with him again, I would jump at the chance.

Your dance scene in "Ted" is also just one of those random movie moments that's ingrained in my brain for some reason.

That was another interesting thing, because that was another decision where I was just hanging out on set watching and knowing that the scene was going to come up.

I think I just turned to Seth [MacFarlane] and I was like, "I just want to dance." It was like two seconds, then he was like, "Great." So then we just did it, and then it started turning into something else, and I think it took all of a half hour to shoot, and then suddenly it became a thing.

Was the song always "I Think We're Alone Now," or was it something else?

No, it was originally some heavy metal song that, I don't know, it was a different thing, but then they ended up putting that one in there.

On admiring 'mavericks' like Kevin Costner and Francis Ford Coppola

You're also in Kevin Costner's "Horizon" Saga. What was filming that like?

The first movie in that series, I'm in it for I think one shot, and that was always the thing. And then the character that I'm doing really shows up for number three and number four. I just got back from filming, I just shaved my beard off yesterday.

I'm really excited about those movies and what he is doing, and also what he stands for as a filmmaker. What Kevin Costner and what Coppola have done, those guys are my heroes.

How so?

Well, just in the true sense, they're mavericks. They're taking chances when that means something. These are guys who are just unbridled troubadours, who are truly laying everything on the line where it's like, whoa. And they're putting their money where their mouth is.

I just think that that is so commendable. But at any scale, I hope more people can take a cue from that kind of thinking. I certainly am trying to.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

"Strange Darling" is now in theaters.