Tony Nardi

Antonio Luigi Nardi is an Italian-Canadian actor, playwright, and theatre director based in Toronto. Fluent in four languages; he has appeared in French, Italian and English-language productions, including over 60 plays and 70 films and television series. He won the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role twice, for The Saracen Woman and My Father's Angel, with three additional nominations.
Two Letters received a Dora Award nomination for Outstanding New Play in 2007.. In 2008, Nardi received a Siminovitch Prize in Theatre nomination for playwriting for Letter Two. He has worked with Théâtre français de Toronto, Persephone Theatre, Great Canadian Theatre Company, and the Stratford Festival. He has also taught acting and directing courses at the University of Toronto and York University.

Early life

Nardi was born in Carolei, Calabria in 1958, and moved to Canada as a child. He was raised in a multilingual environment, and is fluent in French, English, Italian and Calabrian.

Acting

Nardi made his stage debut in a 1978 production of Solzhenitsyn, directed by Alexander Hausvater. Since then, he has performed in over 60 plays including For Those in the Peril on the Sea, Sandinista, Nineteen Eighty-Four, La Storia Calvino, A Flea in Her Ear and The Lesson.
He received a Montreal Gazette Critic's Award in 1979 for his role as O'Brien in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, adapted and directed by David Rhymer., a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Artistic Excellence – Collective – in 1985 for La Storia Calvino, garnered a Dora Award nomination in 2001 for his role in A Flea in Her Ear, and a Dora Award in 2002 for Outstanding Performance for his role in The Lesson. In 2007 he received a Best Actor Thespis Award for Two Letters.
His movie roles include Caffè Italia, Montréal, Concrete Angels, Cruising Bar, The Saracen Woman , An Imaginary Tale, Mr. Aiello , My Father's Angel, Almost America, Corbo and Kiss Me Like a Lover , and his TV credits include Rossini's Ghost, Galileo: On the Shoulders of Giants, Bonanno: A Godfather's Story, Almost America, Il Duce Canadese and Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis.
A four-time Genie Award nominee, he has won twice for Best Actor for roles in The Saracen Woman and My Father's Angel, for which he had also received a Best Actor award at the Sonoma Wine and Country Film Festival in 2000. He received the Guy L’Écuyer Award for his role in La Déroute in 1998. In 2010, the year marking the 30th Genie Awards, he made the Academy's 30th Anniversary Top 10 list in the Lead Actor category in Canadian cinema – a ranking based on the number of wins and nominations over the 30-year period.
In television, he received a Gemini Award nomination in 2006 for his role in Il Duce Canadese and a Best Actor Award at the Geneva International Film Festival, Tous Écrans/All Screens, in 1999, for his role in Ken Finkleman's Foolish Heart.

Writing

Nardi is co-author with Vincent Ierfino of the play La Storia dell'Emigrante. Written in Calabrian, English and French, the play was the first in Canada written by an Italian-Canadian and addressing an Italian-Canadian reality. In 1982 La Storia dell'Emigrante received the first James Bullet Award for Best Original Canadian play at the Ontario Multicultural Theatre Festival.
A Modo Suo: A Fable, written in Calabrian in 1990, received a Dora Award nomination for Best Play. An English translation was published in its entirety in the Canadian Theatre Review in 2000.
He collaborated on the screenplays for La Sarrasine and La Déroute.
Two Letters, two theatrical monologues based on two actual letters sent to a film/television producer and two theatre critics, received a 2007 Dora Award Nomination for Outstanding New Play. "...And Counting!" - a postmortem of "Two Letters" and journey into the state of culture and funding in Canada was presented in 2008 in Toronto and Montreal, at Factory Theatre and McGill University, respectively and in 2010 at the Festival TransAmeriques in Montreal. In 2008 he was nominated for a Siminovitch Prize in Theatre for playwriting.
"Letter One", "Letter Two", and "...And Counting!" were filmed in front of a live audience and released respectively in 2011, 2013 and 2014. "Letter One" was screened at Les Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Montreal in 2011, at Hot Docs in Toronto in 2012 and the Italian Contemporary Film Festival at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2012. "Letter Two" was screened at the Italian Contemporary Film Festival at TIFF in 2013. "...And Counting!" was screened at the 2014 Italian Contemporary Italian Film Festival at TIFF.
In 2013, "Two Letters...And Counting!" was published by Guernica Editions. In 2015 "Two Letters...And Counting!" was nominated for a Patrick O'Neill Scholarly Award. In 2024 "A Modo Suo " was published in the anthology Canadian Plays of Italian Heritage edited by Anna Migliarisi and co-published by Guernica Editions and Rocco Galati.

Academia

Nardi began teaching acting and directing courses in 2017. He has instructed courses at the University of Toronto and University of Toronto Scarborough, and directed courses at York University. On December 8, 2025, he successfully defended his PhD dissertation, Performing the Multicultural Melting Pot and Otherculturalism, at the Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies, University of Toronto, specializing in "the lived experience of 'diverse' performers in Canadian theatre, film and TV under the constitutionally protected Policy of Multiculturalism".

Honors

In 1992, Nardi received the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal, awarded to Canadians for significant contribution to their fellow citizens, to their community, or to Canada.
In 2001, Nardi received a "Toronto Italian Filmfest Award for Major Contribution to Italian-Canadian Cinema" at the Toronto Italian Film Festival
In 2002, Nardi was included in "Canadian Who's Who," "the standard reference source of contemporary Canadian biographies, listing 13,000 notable Canadians selected on merit alone."
In June 2017, Nardi received a "Special Achievement Award" at the Italian Contemporary Film Festival in Toronto.

Personal life

Nardi lived in Montreal with Janne Mortil, his former partner, in 1999-2000.

Filmography

Film

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1987-93	Street Legal	Schultz / Phil Carrera	2 episodes
1990-93	E.N.G.	Regossi / Frank Berman	2 episodes
1994	Side Effects	Peter	Episode: “The Great Chendini”
1997	Kung Fu: The Legend Continues	Alvin Barnes	Episode: “May I Talk With You”
1997	Viper	Pete	Episode: “Manhunt”
1998	Da Vinci's Inquest	François	4 episodes
1999	Foolish Heart	Judge James Schneller	2 episodes
2001	Foreign Objects	Bureaucrat	Episode: “The Award”
2003	Platinum	Nick Tashijan	Main cast; Season 1
2004	The Newsroom	Patrick	Episode: “Slow Burn”
2007	Intelligence	Nick Jordan	7 episodes
2009-10	Cra$h & Burn	Lindo	Recurring role; Season 1
2011	Flashpoint	Cary McCarty	Episode: “A Day in the Life”
2011-12	King	Chief Paul Graci	Main role; Seasons 1-2
2013	Motive	Father Noel Barnett	Episode: “Fallen Angel”
2013	Played	Chief Inspector	Episode: “Cops”