As We See It's Joe Mantegna Reveals His Biggest Professional Fear - Exclusive
Joe Mantegna has had an abundance of memorable roles come his way during his nearly 50-year career. He earned a Tony Award for his performance in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Glengarry Glen Ross." He has appeared in such films as "Three Amigos," "The Godfather Part III," "Bugsy," and "Searching for Bobby Fischer." And he has had a very successful career in television, having voiced Fat Tony on "The Simpsons" for some 30 years and starred on "Criminal Minds" for 13 seasons.
Mantegna's latest project is the now-streaming Prime Video series "As We See It," which follows three young adults on the autism spectrum as they maneuver through life and try to fit into society. There's also talk of a "Criminal Minds" revival airing on Paramount+ in the future.
Despite having such a prolific career, Mantegna still has professional fears just like the rest of us. And during an exclusive interview with Looper, the veteran actor revealed his biggest worry, which may surprise you.
Joe Mantegna is concerned that his career might dry up
"I'm not a planner," admits Mantegna. "I didn't know I was going to do 'Criminal Minds' 'til the day that I got the phone call from my agent saying, 'Hey, they're looking to cast this role, because this other actor left.' I looked at it and thought, 'Oh, I'll do it.' The same thing [happened] when I read the script for 'As We See It.' The day before I read that script, I didn't know that the next thing I was going to do was to play a father of a child with autism, which is what I do in real life."
While that carefree attitude may sound enticing to some, it's actually a source of stress for Mantegna sometimes.
"To me, that's the scary part of our business in the sense that there's the unknown," he says. "You just don't know. I remember seeing an interview years ago with ['Money Pit' co-star] Tom Hanks, where he said even as successful as he is, he still worries every day, will I ever work again? I get it, that's the actor's life."
Mantegna says he tries not to worry about it too much, even though it's always in the back of his mind. "My feeling is, look, I've been doing this for 50 years," he says. "It's too late to change course. This is what I do. Hopefully, there's going to be something out there where somebody's going to think that I'm maybe the right person to do it, and let's see what happens. Let's see what door opens for me. I have no wish list. It's not like, 'I hope to do this before I call it a day.' No. We'll see."
All eight episodes of Mantegna's latest series, "As We See It," are now available to stream on Prime Video.