Cannavale realizes his 'wildest dreams' in 'Glengarry'

• Actor chats about working with Pacino in new revival
• Stage and screen vet also earning acclaim for HBO's 'Boardwalk Empire'
• His stage co-star is his 'favorite actor of all time'

NEW YORK — Bobby Cannavale is grabbing lunch in his homey Upper West Side apartment when his attention turns to a handsome black-and-white photo lying on a table, still encased in cardboard. It's a gift from the set photographer of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, on which the actor has earned acclaim playing Gyp Rosetti, a hot-tempered, thin-skinned gangster.

"That's me," Cannavale says proudly, pointing to a man in a hat and trench coat, his back turned to the camera, wielding a wrench over a crouched, cowering figure. "It was my very first day of shooting, and I was beating the hell out of a guy on a beach, in February. I love it because you can't see my face."

The wrench was rubber, he assures a visitor, turning back to his sandwich. "Are you kidding me? I've hit more people with rubber wrenches in that (show) than I can remember."

In Cannavale's latest gig, neither he nor any of his fellow actors have to assault each other — not physically, anyway. A new Broadway revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross — now in previews at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, where it will open Saturday — casts the 42-year-old stage and screen veteran as Ricky Roma, the slickest and most successful member of a group of Chicago salesmen struggling to survive in the cut-throat real estate business.

The project is "something beyond my wildest dreams," Cannavale says, not least because it allows him to perform opposite his "favorite actor of all time," Al Pacino, who plays the aging former ace salesman Shelly Levene. It was Pacino himself, in fact, who recommended Cannavale for the part of Roma, which Pacino had tackled in the 1992 screen adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

Cannavale had met his idol at the 2011 Tony Awards, where both were up for the best-actor prize — Pacino for The Merchant of Venice, Cannavale for The Mother------ With the Hat. (Both lost, to British actor Mark Rylance.) Cannavale invited Pacino to see Hat, which he did; after the performance, they spoke at length in the younger actor's dressing room. "As he was leaving, (Pacino) kind of put his hand on my face and said, 'We'll do it one day.'"

The call for Glengarry came a few months later. "It's been amazing to watch Al do his process," Cannavale says. "He's generous and democratic and makes you feel like you can do anything — because he tries everything, and I love that."

Not that Cannavale felt compelled to emulate Pacino's delivery in the film. Studying past performances "is something that never makes sense to me." He asked Pacino only one question about it, concerning where Roma was seated in an early scene. "And Al said" — Cannavale lowers his voice and adjusts his intonation, perfectly aping Pacino's distinctive rasp: "'You don't remember? I don't remember anything about that movie!'"

Cannavale also is a longtime Mamet fan, having discovered the playwright on the page while growing up in Union City, N.J. "I was a reader of plays from a very young age, and I remember getting a copy of American Buffalo and being blown away." He views Glengarry as an especially topical work in showing "the desperation with which people try to hold on to their jobs. All these guys are living month to month, and that really resonates with people now."

As a working actor, Cannavale can relate. "I learned a long time ago not to make plans in this business. I've been told so many times, 'This is it, man — you're about to be a star!' You can't listen to that noise. I just wanted this to be my job — that's how I look at it. I wanted to be a New York City actor, because all my favorite actors were from here; so I always knew that I would work in the theater. Then I got a TV show that's shot in the city, then another," in addition to films by New York-based actor/director/writers such as Thomas McCarthy (The Station Agent, Win Win) and John Turturro. (Ironically, he did just shoot one movie in San Francisco — for New York icon Woody Allen.)

"There's a sense of community here that I've always wanted," Cannavale says. "I went to a jock school and was never an athlete; and I don't think I'd feel like a part of the group that does the Los Angeles scene either. As long as I can pay my bills and take care of my family and not get shoehorned into one type of role, I'm happy. And knock on wood, I've had some great opportunities."