--- name: "Nick Sandow" canonical: "https://film.one/person/nick-sandow" roles: ["Actor","Director"] born: "3 August 1966" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 updated: "2026-09-17T02:28:09.898565+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Nick Sandow Actor and director. Born 3 August 1966 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Actor, Director - **Born:** 3 August 1966, The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA ## Fi1m on Nick Sandow > Nick Sandow's stock in trade is the man in charge who is not quite up to it: harassed, decent enough, compromised by the end of the scene. Joe Caputo gave him seven seasons of that man; his own films stay close to the Bronx. Nick Sandow's face does most of its work while somebody else is talking. As Joe Caputo in *Orange Is the New Black* (2013), he spends a great deal of time listening to bad news, and what registers is a man trying to work out how much of it is his fault before he answers. It is a performance built on hesitation: the joke arrives a beat late, the apology a beat later, and the self-respect in between is always in negotiation. That is the character actor's trade, and Sandow has practised it for a long time. The practice started in the early 1990s with guest parts on *Law & Order*, taken while he was bartending in New York, and continued through the decade in theatre and small film roles, including *Return to Paradise* (1998). Television gave him the steadier work: recurring parts on *Third Watch* and, as the gangster Waxey Gordon, three episodes of *Boardwalk Empire* (2011). Then Jenji Kohan's prison series expanded a recurring role into a regular one, and Caputo became the part people knew him by. He also directed five episodes of it, and went on to direct more television and to act in *Clarice* (2021). The Caputo years are where our view is most mixed, and not because of Sandow. Our review of the series said plainly that the staff storylines, his chief among them, take up more room than they earn, and we stand by it. We liked him and wished him fewer scenes, which is an odd thing to feel about an actor, and it comes from the writing giving his ambivalence more screen time than it could carry. Within any single scene he is precise, funny in the small, mortified way of a man who knows he is being watched, and the vulnerability is never asked for. Across a season it thins. As a director he has kept to what he knows. *Ponies* (2011) came out of a play he had already staged, with John Ventimiglia in the cast, and set an immigrant ensemble in a betting parlour; the complaint against it has been that it never quite stopped being a play, with flashbacks that muddle rather than explain. *The Wannabe* (2015) he wrote, directed and acted in, playing Anthony, a man caught up in the 1990s New York fascination with the mob; Martin Scorsese executive produced. "That was my time," he said of it. "I'm born and raised in the Bronx, and I'm from a similar neighborhood as Thomas. So that world was very vivid to me." His stated method is rehearsal and making actors feel safe on set, and it is the method of someone who has spent years being directed and noticed what helped. We have not reviewed either feature and will not judge them at length here. What we can say is that the director and the actor are the same man: careful, local, better on faces than on structure. The best of him remains in the first two seasons of Kohan's prison, being told no by women who know exactly what he is. ## Biography Nick Sandow is an American character actor, writer, producer and director. He is best known for playing prison administrator Joe Caputo in the Netflix series *Orange Is the New Black* (2013–2019), a role that began as a recurring part and became a series regular; he also directed five episodes of the series. Born on 3 August 1966 in the Bronx, New York City, Sandow grew up in the Van Nest neighbourhood and moved to Manhattan around the age of 19 to study acting at the William Esper Studio. He made his television debut in an episode of *Law & Order* in 1992 and appeared in guest roles on series including *Law & Order: Special Victims Unit*, *Boardwalk Empire* and *Blue Bloods*. Sandow directed the feature film *Ponies* (2011) and wrote, directed and acted in *The Wannabe* (2015). He received three Screen Actors Guild Awards as part of the ensemble cast of *Orange Is the New Black*. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Orange Is the New Black* (2013), Fi1m 79, as Joe Caputo — [page](https://film.one/tv/orange-is-the-new-black.md) ## Also known for - *Law & Order: Special Victims Unit* (1999), Ted McCormack, Doug Kersten, Leo Eichmeier - *CSI: Miami* (2002), Larry Gramercy - *The Sitter* (2011), Officer Frank - *Blue Bloods* (2010), Lt. Alex Bello - *FBI* (2018), Jack Grippo - *Law & Order* (1990), Pete Pogosian, Bail Agent Andy Grenada, Officer Nelson - *The Accidental Husband* (2008), Larry - *Law & Order: Criminal Intent* (2001), Roydell Getty, Albert Kirkoff --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/nick-sandow