Marisa Tomei was born on December 4, 1964, in Brooklyn, New York, to Patricia "Addie" (Bianchi), a teacher of English, and Gary Tomei, a lawyer, both of Italian descent. Marisa has a brother, actor Adam Tomei. As a child, Marisa's mother frequently corrected her speech as to eliminate her heavy Brooklyn accent. As a teen, Marisa attended Edward R. Murrow High School and graduated in the class of 1982. She was one year into her college education at Boston University when she dropped out for a co-starring role on the CBS daytime drama As the World Turns (1956). Her role on that show paved the way for her entrance into film: in 1984, she made her film debut with a bit part in The Flamingo Kid (1984). Three years later, Marisa became known for her role as Maggie Lawton, Lisa Bonet's college roommate, on the sitcom A Different World (1987).

Her real breakthrough came in 1992, when she co-starred as Joe Pesci's hilariously foul-mouthed, scene-stealing girlfriend in My Cousin Vinny (1992), a performance that won her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Later that year, she turned up briefly as a snippy Mabel Normand in director Richard Attenborough's biopic Chaplin (1992), and was soon given her first starring role in Untamed Heart (1993). A subsequent starring role -- and attempted makeover into Audrey Hepburn -- in the romantic comedy Only You (1994) proved only moderately successful.

Marisa's other 1994 role as Michael Keaton's hugely pregnant wife in The Paper (1994) was well-received, although the film as a whole was not. Fortunately for Tomei, she was able to rebound the following year with a solid performance as a troubled single mother in Nick Cassavetes' Unhook the Stars (1996) which earned her a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She turned in a similarly strong work in Welcome to Sarajevo (1997), and in 1998 did some of her best work in years as the sexually liberated, unhinged cousin of Natasha Lyonne's Vivian Abramowitz in Tamara Jenkins' Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). Marisa co-starred with Mel Gibson in the hugely successful romantic comedy What Women Want (2000) and during the 2002 movie award season, she proved her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar win was no fluke when she received her second nomination in the same category for the critically acclaimed dark drama, In the Bedroom (2001). She also made a guest appearance on the animated TV phenomenon The Simpsons (1989) as Sara Sloane, a movie star who falls in love with Ned Flanders. In 2006, she went on to do 4 episodes for Rescue Me (2004). She played Angie, the ex-wife of Tommy Calvin (Denis Leary)'s brother Johnny (Dean Winters). At age 42, Marisa took on a provocative role in legendary filmmaker Sidney Lumet's melodramatic picture Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), in which she appeared nude in love scenes with costars Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Marisa then took on another provocative role as a stripper in the highly acclaimed film The Wrestler (2008) opposite Mickey Rourke. Her great performance earned her many awards from numerous film societies for Best Supporting Actress, a third Academy Award nomination, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. Many critics heralded this performance as a standout in her career.

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Trivia

Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1991" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 43.
Attended Boston University.
Attended Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn, New York. Her brother, Adam Tomei, and Darren Aronofsky also attended this high school.
Older sister of actor Adam Tomei.
Has a tattoo of the Egyptian Eye of Ra (protection, good luck abundance) on her right foot.
In 2003, she played the title role in a revival of Oscar Wilde's "Salome" in an Actors Studio production, directed by Estelle Parsons, on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre; co-stars included Al Pacino, Dianne Wiest, and David Strathairn.
She is of Italian descent. Her family is from Tuscany, Sicily, Campania, and Calabria.
Before the 1993 Oscar ceremony, she told Entertainment Tonight (1981) that her biggest fear was that she would trip on the steps on her way to the stage. She did.
Revealed to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show (1996) that she sometimes travels under an Italian passport. (Oct 2004)
No relation to Concetta Tomei.
Holds dual United States and Italian citizenship.
Her mother was an English teacher at Cavallaro Junior High School in Brooklyn, New York.
Auditioned for the role of "Dorothy Boyd" in Jerry Maguire (1996).
In the early 1990s, she had a relationship with Robert Downey Jr. (her co-star in Chaplin (1992) and Only You (1994)). In 1999, she was with actor Dana Ashbrook and had a relationship with Frank Pugliese. She (as of 2009) now dates actor Logan Marshall-Green, who is twelve years her junior.
Until Captain America: Civil War (2016), she had never starred in a sequel or a prequel to a film.
One of People Magazine's Most Beautiful People 2009.
Godmother of Zoë Kravitz, daughter of Marisa's A Different World (1987) co-star Lisa Bonet.
Turned down the female lead in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) which went to Andie MacDowell.
While portraying roommates on A Different World (1987), she and co-star Lisa Bonet were roommates in real life.
Announced in 7 February 2005 edition of New York Times, she has signed to join the cast of Neil LaBute's "This Is How It Goes" at New York's Public Theatre, beginning previews, March 8, 2005, co-starring Ben Stiller. [February 2005]
Joins Indian and Pakistani actresses in performances of The Vagina Monologues on a Bombay stage to mark International Women's Day. [March 2004]
She, Marcia Gay Harden, Russell Crowe and Adrien Brody are the only actors to win an Oscar without being awarded for the same performance in none of its predecessor awards (Golden Globe, Critics Choice Awards, SAG and BAFTA). She and Marcia Gay Harden were not even nominated for those awards for their performances in My Cousin Vinny (1992) and Pollock (2000), and Crowe's only award for Gladiator (2000) before the Oscar was the Critics Choice award.

Personal Quotes 

I don't prefer much of film over stage... The only thing I prefer is the paycheck.
Singing really oxygenates your blood. You stretch your lungs and take in much more air into them than before. It's really good for your health.
I feel like theatre gives me the grounding, and keeps me alive, basically. Film gives me the thrill, and it's like a one night stand. But I do enjoy being around people who love it so much.
[on marriage and starting her own family] I'm not that big a fan of marriage as an institution and I don't know why women need to have children to be seen as complete human beings.
[on her role in The Wrestler (2008)] What didn't appeal to me was, frankly, New Jersey, naked, winter!
[on Gena Rowlands] As a young actress I saw her in Opening Night (1977). She was so larger-than-life, yet her performances are so detailed- no color is left out. She's ferocious, beautiful, elegant, compassionate, funny, sexy. A broad in the best sense of the word - that's what I aspire to be.
[on pole dancing] It's really physically hard! That pole work is crazy hard; to be really good on that pole and you have to be really strong.
[on being nude in films] I definitely feel like I didn't want to do that kind of thing when I was younger because I didn't think that it was something a serious actress would do, in a way there is validity to that. It's harder to be taken seriously when you're younger, doing that but I've also come to a point of being able to handle the reaction to it - that probably would have been more difficult when I was younger.
You can't really be old in L.A., it's kind of like a crime.
(1996) I think the fantasy of being a movie star is more powerful than the reality. So, for me, even if it's not a great film or a great play I'm doing, to know that you went for it. You had an experience that made you grow artistically and personally. What's really satisfying is knowing that you did a good job.
(1996) When I was first starting, I went to an agent who told me, 'Listen, you'll be lucky if you do summer stock. Pack it up.' Once in a while I think about him, but I'm happy with myself. So, what does he matter?