Milo Ventimiglia

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Date of Birth : Jul 8th 1977

American actor. He is best known for his roles in the NBC series Heroes as idealistic hero Peter Petrelli, in the family-oriented television series Gilmore Girls as Rory’s rebel boyfriend Jess Mariano, and as Rocky’s son Robert Balboa in the final movie of the Rocky saga, Rocky Balboa. His last name, “Ventimiglia”, literally translates to “twenty miles” in Italian.

At 18 years of age, Ventimiglia started auditioning, booking jobs, and working his way up. From there, Ventimiglia studied for a while at UCLA before landing a role on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Ventimiglia has also guest starred on such television series as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (TV series), Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Boston Public.

From 2001 to 2003, Ventimiglia played brooding teen Jess Mariano on Gilmore Girls. He signed on for a spin-off of Gilmore Girls, entitled Windward Circle, which was going to be focused on the relationship between Jess and his estranged father (Adrian Pasdar, who plays Ventimiglia’s brother on Heroes, was up for the role of the father), but the proposed series never made it to the air because of high filming costs. The season 3 episode Here Comes the Son, was the pilot for the California-set spin-off, which would have starred Ventimiglia, Rob Estes and Sherilyn Fenn. He also directed the 2003 and 2004 WB Image Campaigns for the WB. Ventimiglia returned to Gilmore Girls for a few episodes in seasons four and six since his 2003 departure.

In the third and final season of the NBC drama American Dreams, Ventimiglia played Chris Pierce, the rebellious boyfriend of Meg Pryor (Brittany Snow). Pierce and his single mother, Shelly (Daphne Zuniga), a Playboy bunny, move into the house next to the Pryors. Chris Pierce evades the draft, fearing he would be forced to fight in the Vietnam War, where Meg Pryor’s older brother, J.J. (Will Estes) was wounded. Chris and Meg escape Philadelphia in the series finale to Berkeley, California, much to the sadness of Meg’s best friend, Roxanne Bojarski (Vanessa Lengies).