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Carlo Rota

Carlo Rota took a less conventional route to the screen than most. A British-born Canadian actor, he was born in London on April 17, 1961, to Italian parents and grew up in Osterley. His family later lived in Italy, Hong Kong, the Bahamas and the United Kingdom before settling in Toronto—a well-travelled background that seems fitting for a performer whose career has moved easily between Canadian, British and American television. Before acting, Rota spent years in the culinary industry, operating and owning several Toronto restaurants. He decided to change careers at 30 and almost immediately found roles in the Canadian series Street Legal and the independent film Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. His restaurant experience also led to hosting CBC’s Great Canadian Food Show, which was nominated for a James Beard Award for Excellence in Culinary Journalism. Rota has become especially familiar through television characters who arrive with confidence, wit or a suggestion that they know more than they are saying. On 24, he played Morris O’Brian, the arrogant but highly capable computer scientist married to Chloe O’Brian. La Femme Nikita gave him an even more slippery assignment: Mick Schtoppel, an informant whose identity becomes entangled in a succession of elaborate revelations. He found a warmer comic register as Yasir Hamoudi, the Lebanese-Canadian construction contractor in CBC’s Little Mosque on the Prairie. Elsewhere, he has appeared in Queer as Folk, Castle, Relic Hunter, Traders, Stargate Universe, White Collar, CSI: NY, The Mentalist, Bones, Grimm, NCIS: Los Angeles and Breaking Bad. His film work includes Saw V, in which he played Herald journalist Charles. In 2024, Rota joined General Hospital as Jenz Sidwell. It is another role in a career shaped less by one fixed screen persona than by adaptability: comedy, conspiracy drama, crime television, horror and soap opera all sit comfortably within his range.