Armand Assante began as the charming Frenchman in Private Benjamin and spent the following decades making sure nobody cast him that way again: gangsters, bandleaders, a mob boss, Odysseus. The determination is admirable; the parts have often been smaller than the preparation.
Fi1m perspective
He turns up in Private Benjamin (1980) after the film has left the barracks, a Frenchman called Henrí Trémont with a soft voice and good manners, there to give Goldie Hawn's Judy something to want. The first half of that film is sharp and well drilled; the half he is in is not. He is handed charm and nothing to do with it, and he does what an actor can do in that position, which is to be pleasant in every scene and memorable in none. We felt for him, and we still checked the time twice in the last half hour, which is not the reaction a love interest hopes to produce.
Assante noticed too. He has said that after that film he made it a point to do hard-nosed New York characters, because nobody believed he was American, and the career that followed is largely that decision carried out. There is the drug dealer Bobby Texador in Sidney Lumet's Q&A (1990), the Cuban bandleader Cesar Castillo opposite Antonio Banderas in The Mambo Kings (1992), John Gotti in the television film Gotti (1996), a crime-family capo for Ridley Scott in American Gangster (2007). Odysseus in the 1997 miniseries The Odyssey is the odd one out, and even he is a man who hits people. Accents, period detail, research by the yard: he is known for preparing for these parts as if sitting an exam.
What critics tend to notice is the intensity, and what they tend to hold against him is the same thing played a notch too loud; The Mambo Kings drew that complaint. The typecasting he ran from in 1980 followed him in a different coat, so that the Frenchman became a Puerto Rican, then a Cuban, then an Italian from New York. We have not weighed those performances ourselves. On the evidence of the one film of his we know best, an actor who would rather be too much than too little has reasoned correctly.
The later decades are mostly independent films, often with newer directors and writers, and he has said he prefers it that way, without the pressures a studio brings. Sylvester Stallone has had him back three times and Scott twice, so somebody in the large rooms still thinks of him. If you want to see where he started, Private Benjamin is there, and the good half is the half without him. Where he went next is, by all accounts, the better evening, though not one we can vouch for yet.
Biography
Armand Anthony Assante Jr. is an American actor. He trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, where he won the Jehlinger Award in 1969. He began his career with roles in NBC soap operas including The Doctors and How to Survive a Marriage before appearing in films such as Paradise Alley (1978).
Assante gained attention for his performance as Henri Alan Tremont in the 1980 comedy Private Benjamin. He later played Dominic Cattano in the 2007 crime film American Gangster. Other notable roles include John Gotti in the 1996 HBO television film Gotti, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award, and voice work as Tzekel-Kan in the 2000 animated film The Road to El Dorado.
He has received nominations for four Golden Globe Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Assante has also appeared in television series including Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, NCIS and ER.
