I have watched my brother Sergio Di Zio grow up. I think being nearly a decade older gave me a unique perch. I am proud of Serg’s achievements as an accomplished, multiple award-winning actor in film, television and Canadian stage goes without saying. What I find more compelling and beautiful is that my brother has courageously embraced his natural gifts, has genuinely accepted the support of loved ones and continues to work so hard and so honestly to make sure his life honours both.
From my vantage point, it is as clear as day, Serg has always been an actor. As a young child, I would watch him craft popsicle stick puppets that he would then call into action. With his cast of cousins, my brother would create fantastical worlds populated by countless action figures. I recall heroes and villains everywhere. Jedi and Stormtroopers, Batman and The Joker and Hulk Hogan, who often got cast as Joseph in our aunt’s epic, room-sized Christmas Nativity scenes. In my memory, one day Serg learned to walk, asked our parents for braces, attended a drama class at the local library, starred as Romeo in high school, left home and walked onto the set of National Lampoon’s Senior Trip, his first feature film – so clear and straight seemed his path.
Serg would never profess to be self-made. Our parents had day jobs but certainly passed on their creative genes. Mom was a wise and deeply empathetic writer and Dad was a charismatic crooner and artist. Our world was our large, strange and beautifully supportive extended Italo-Canadian family. We threw polka house parties, rented summer lodges, celebrated birthdays and weddings and mourned all our losses together. And we ate together…Lord, did we ever eat together! Serg proudly still turns to our food traditions. Yes, you can ripen tomatoes on the glistening hardwood floor of your seventh-story loft.
I admire my brother because it’s a big risk to do what you love.
I love my brother because on screen or on stage, I still always clearly see Serg.
-Written by Robert Di Zio, brother
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Which ’hood are you in?
I live in the Riverside area. I can see the downtown core on the other side of a sliver of the Don River from the corner of my condo terrace. It’s an area that both encourages daily walks and has nearby ramps for (sometimes) speedy QEW and DVP road trips out.
What do you do?
I’m an actor with good timing. I started my career just as Toronto’s theatre community and its film and television production both began decades-long growth spurts. Many years of the right place/right time and excellent actor adventures.
What are you currently working on?
Rehearsals for James Fritz’s “Four Minutes Twelve Seconds” for Studio 180 Theatre at the Tarragon Theatre co-starring Megan Follows, Tavaree Daniel-Simms, and Jadyn Nasato. Directed by Mark McGrinder. The North American premiere runs from April 20 to May 12.
Where can we find your work?
You can watch the full second season of the web series I Will Bury You, currently on YouTube. I am one of its producers and stars. The series is currently enjoying international attention and nominations that could mean some out-of-country travel for my partners and me this spring and summer. I’m guest starring in episode seven of our city’s brand new Law and Order Toronto: Criminal Intent airing on City Thursday nights at 8/7 c on City TV. And as we get out of 2024 I’ll be performing in one more, soon-to-be-announced, very funny, Toronto-centric play here in the east end. Walking distance!
