About Us

Lucia Grillo is a professional, SAG-AFTRA/AEA actress, filmmaker, film & TV producer, voiceover talent (English, Italian, French, Spanish), commercial print model, and on-camera correspondent.

She received her BFA in Acting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and began her professional studies at age fifteen at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute NYC, where she studied intensively for seven years, through her NYU years, while minoring in Cinema Studies and Italian lit.

As an actress, she has worked twice with Spike Lee: in "Summer of Sam" opposite Academy Award Winner Mira Sorvino and John Leguizamo and selected personally by Lee himself for the principal role in his irreverent Finlandia Vodka spot for the European market; with Tony Gilroy in his Julia Roberts-starrer, "Duplicity." She will soon be seen in two forthcoming series: "Switch," with Academy Award Winner, Olympia Dukakis; and "Untraditional," opposite Italian star and the show's creator, Fabio Volo.

Lucia’s award-winning short film A pena do pana (The Cost of Bread), shot on location in Italy, premiered at AFI Fest, aired on national Italian television (La 7), and continues to be screened internationally. The film’s score includes original music by San Remo winner Sergio Cammariere and frequent Bill Plympton collaborator, Nicole Renaud. Her third short Ad Ipponion (Ode to Hipponion), also shot on location in Italy, was an Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival SFC. Lucia’s feature documentary Terra sogna terra (Earth Dream Earth) has screened internationally and aired as a Special on CUNY TV. Her sophomore documentary Testardi (Stubborn) recently screened at Rome’s Apollo 11 and Teatro dell’Acquario.

She directs music videos ranging from hip hop and pop to singer-songwriters and doom metal. She has also produced PSAs, featuring stars such as Danny Aiello, Lidia Bastianich, and Michael Badalucco.

As producer & correspondent of a magazine-format TV program that aired on CUNY TV for a decade, Lucia produced and reported on over ninety half-hour monthly episodes and over forty One-Hour Specials - including Women's History Month Specials she conceived for the show - in addition to promos, countless original digital content, and livestream events. She obtained the "Made in New York" status for the show, brought it to CUNY TV’s Top 5 most viewed shows on the station's YouTube Channel, and her individual segments have reached over 40,000 views. Notable among the numerous and varied guests she has produced and interviewed are John Turturro, Isabella Rossellini, Chaz Palmintieri, Joe Piscopo, Vincent Piazza, Mike Piazza, Maria Bartiromo, Giovanni Reda, and many others across the arts, sciences, academia, sports, and culinary segments she introduced to the program. She conducts all aspects of production, including writing all scripts – both for the show’s host as well as for herself as correspondent; research; permissions; bookings; locations; single and multi-camera remote and studio segments; interviews in English and Italian; shooting, editing; and more.

As guest correspondent for Italian Cinema Today, Lucia has interviewed directors such as Maria Sole Tognazzi, PIF, Claudio Cupellini, Gabriele Mainetti, Irene Dionisio, and others during the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s and Istituto Luce Cinecittà’s festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.

As film festival MC, Lucia has interviewed such figures as William Shatner.

She has worked internationally as a model - beginning on the runway as a child and now as a commercial print model.

Lucia has taught acting at the University of Malta, Rome, for LAMBDA/LINK Bachelor of Arts Degree program and various courses/seminars on Italian cinema, in both Italy and the U.S. She has been on panels as a filmmaker and as a producer-correspondent for innumerable film festivals and at universities, as well as other events, both in the US and in Italy.

Besides her mother tongue English, and Calabrian dialect, she speaks fluent Italian, French, essential Spanish, and some Welsh, all of which she enjoys using as an on-camera professional and voiceover talent.

Lucia is currently in development on her first narrative feature film and is adapting a book for television, both to be shot on location in Italy and New York.

More info, videos, press, etc., at www.calabrisellafilms.com.