Michele Santopietro

First became known in HBO's critically acclaimed THE SOPRANOS (Seasons 1-4) as mob enforcer wife "JoJo Palmice", as well as numerous lead roles in Award-Winning films and television, such as the Lionsgate feature TWO FAMILY HOUSE, THE DONNER PARTY opposite Crispin Glover, and the film AMERICAN VIOLENCE with Bruce Dern. An Accent/Dialect Master and chameleon, her roles are so transformative she is often not recognized from one role to the next, and has been called "one of the most versatile and talented actresses on screen" by New York Magazine. On screen she is most well known for her gritty dramatic performances, but performed on stage with several Standup Comedy Improv groups for many years at the Boston and New York Comedy Clubs, and was an original member of the CityKids Repertory Company in New York City. In the fourth grade Michele was given a battery of I.Q. tests and scored in the highest percentile in the country, and spent most of her grammar school days in special programs for the intellectually gifted that she has said made her feel ostracized and isolated, skipping several grades as a child. She was the recipient of numerous academic awards for Science, among them the prestigious "Yale Peabody Museum Award for Young Minds"--in which her name is engraved on a plaque that hangs at the Peabody Museum itself. She chose to forgo a number of full scholarships to various top-rated universities in order to attend New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she received Degrees in Drama and Clinical Psychology. She graduated a "Founder's Day Scholar" in the top academic percentile of her class, and was the recipient of Tisch's prestigious "Artist and Scholar Award", as well as the Riggio Award for Acting Excellence. She has performed on-stage in over 100 theatrical plays on and off Broadway, as well as Directing a number of live plays and theatrical performances. She is a prolific Voice Over Performer who has voiced hundreds of radio and television commercials, audio books, audio-dramas, video games, animation, and was the promotional Voice of Discovery Channel's Animal Planet Network for several years. She is also an Award-Winning Screenwriter who has taken top accolades in several Screenplay Competitions including the Beverly Hills and New York Screenplay Competitions over nearly 35,000 other writers. Michele was previously a nationally ranked Cross-Country running champion, winning numerous trophies including a Silver Medal finish in the children's/youth division in the New Haven Roadrace (marathon) in 1992, and is a Classically trained Opera singer who formerly sang in a few local rock bands. She was born in Bayside, New York in 1979 and had to change her name to "Michele" for her Union Membership as a child, since her birth name was already taken. She is also a life-long advocate of Taoism and Eastern philosophy and religion.