Carlo Rota

Birthday

Apr 17, 1961

Birthplace

London, England, UK

Bio: A distinguished actor once named by Toronto magazine as "The Best Maître d' in the City," Carlo Rota began life in London, England, in 1961, but spent his youth in a stunningly diverse and exotic series of transcontinental locales, including Hong Kong, Manhattan, and the Bahamas. Rota's life became more fixed when his father accepted a prestigious job as the head… More Bio: A distinguished actor once named by Toronto magazine as "The Best Maître d' in the City," Carlo Rota began life in London, England, in 1961, but spent his youth in a stunningly diverse and exotic series of transcontinental locales, including Hong Kong, Manhattan, and the Bahamas. Rota's life became more fixed when his father accepted a prestigious job as the head chef at the Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto, Ontario, and his parents opted to remain in that metropolis. Armed with an inherent, hereditary love of the culinary arts, Carlo spent over a decade working in various capacities in his family's food empire, but by the age of 30 he grew relatively tired of this and opted to try acting instead. Ironically (or perhaps not so), Rota landed his first significant role as a waiter on the series Street Legal, then accepted a prestigious assignment as host/emcee of the small screen #92;documentary series The Great American Food Show. In time, however, Rota's culinary background began to exert much less influence over his choice of acting assignments. He signed for roles in Canadian productions both critically worshipped (Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, 1994) and panned (Joe's Wedding, 1996), but maintained a steady diet of work, especially on Canadian television. Rota broke through to Hollywood assignments on two notes: first, with an ongoing, season-long role as Morris O'Brian on the Kiefer Sutherland series 24, and then with a turn as Charles, one of the latest individuals to encounter the diabolical machinations of Jigsaw in the blood-soaked slasher outing Saw V (2008).Rota is not to be confused with another actor of the same name who worked in Italy in the 1970s and appeared in Ermanno Olmi's The Tree of the Wooden Clogs (1978).