Paul Monte Jr.'s fascination with the entertainment industry began at a tender age, captivated by the production values and excitement of daytime game shows such as Card Sharks and The Price Is Right in the late 1970s. As a toddler, he would spend hours watching these shows, dreaming of finding a way to step into the TV screen.
As he grew older, Paul's interest in the performing arts only intensified, and he began participating in religious holiday productions at his grade school in Bristol, Pennsylvania. He even spent time as an altar boy at Saint Mark's Church in Bristol, where he drew parallels between serving mass and performing.
However, it wasn't until his college years that Paul's passion for acting truly ignited. At Cabrini College in Radnor, Pennsylvania, he practically lived at The Red Cloud Coffee House theater, performing in numerous student-written and classic productions, including Cabaret. He also took advantage of every acting, writing, and producing class the college offered.
After graduating in 1998, Paul struggled to find work in video production or theater, and he eventually took a job designing newspaper pages for his hometown publication, The Bucks County Courier Times. A year later, he landed a position with electronic retailer QVC in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he worked in their internal communication department and later as a graphic designer and art director.
Ten years into his QVC career, Paul began taking acting classes in Philadelphia with casting director Mike Lemon, and he continued his training at the Walnut Street Theatre and workshops in New York City, including one with actor-director Chazz Palminteri. After a series of local commercial bookings in and around the Philadelphia area, Paul's big break came in the summer of 2009 when he was cast in the movie How Do You Know (2010),directed by James L. Brooks.
Paul's experience on the set of How Do You Know was a turning point in his career, and he left QVC in 2010 to pursue acting full-time. Since then, he has appeared in notable roles, including District Attorney Mark Franklin in the fourth and final season of the Cinemax series Banshee (2013),a Rothschild Broker in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013),directed by Martin Scorsese, and in Chris Evans' directorial debut Before We Go (2014).
