Half of the world was crying on the story of the father protecting his son very creatively in a concentration camp, and everyone became attached to the thin boy who was always ready to play. Let’s see what happened to the sometime cute little child actor.
In Roberto Benigni’s all heart drama, Guido and his family were taken to a concentration camp during World War II, and in order to protect his son from the horrors the father makes him believe that it’s just a game. The little Joshua enthusiastically starts following the game’s rules and his dad who is ready to sacrifice his life for him.
Giorgio Cantarini was chosen for Joshua’s role when he was only four years old, and the boy’s acting contributed in great extent to Roberto Benigni’s Academy Award for the best male protagonist. La vita è bella won in the category of the best film in a foreign language as well, so the little boy could say that his first movie was a multiple times Academy Award winner production.
His success didn’t end that time, as Cantarini maintaining his good habits appeared three years later in the five Academy Award winner Gladiator as the murdered son of the protagonist, Maximus (Russel Crowe), who welcomes his dad in the after-life. Cantarini was only eight years old, but it seemed like nothing can stophim from becoming a real child star.
One year after Gladiator’s debut, in 2001 the young actor appeared in the American television film titled In Love and War. Then he acted in two Italian productions in 2007 and 2008, but after these he retired from filming. Cantarini went back to school, and the audience could see the grown boy again only in the Italian version of the Saturday Night Fever dancing television show.
The 23-year old Cantarini decided to be a successful actor as an adult as well, and he got a degree in 2015 in the Italian school Centro Sperimentale Di Cinematografia. He is currently involved in a web series, and lives the ordinary life of the average, in-love twenty-something people.
