Alex Ardenti

Birth Name: Alessandro Ardenti

Alex Ardenti Director Originally from Rome, Italy, Alex Ardenti moved to Wollongong, Australia at the age of three. While his parents were busy opening the family's first restaurant, Alex was bus ...Show More

Alex Ardenti Director Originally from Rome, Italy, Alex Ardenti moved to Wollongong, Australia at the age of three. While his parents were busy opening the family's first restaurant, Alex was busy taking pictures of the world around him with an instamatic camera he received for his seventh birthday. His dad's super 8mm movie camera soon became his next toy to play with. He made his first commercials at this time using his sister and pets as actors. Upon the Ardenti family's return to Italy, Alex by now a teenager, began lifting weights and by seventeen had become the country's youngest Mr. Italy. He followed that victory by winning the European Junior Bodybuilding Championships at nineteen while in the Italian Military Police. He admits that movies like Rocky and Conan motivated him to start building his body and completely changed the course of his life. It was his success as a young bodybuilder that led him to believe that his dreams were attainable and that anything was possible if he dedicated himself to it and worked hard enough at it. Fascinated by the California lifestyle he read about in magazines and saw on TV and american movies Alex made the move to Los Angeles in the late '80s. Photography and filmmaking had taken a back seat to his bodybuilding career during his competitive years in Italy but re-emerged in full force once he came in contact with Hollywood. He felt they were his true calling all along. Even though in Rome he often played bit roles such as Hercules (Young Hercules in the Lou Ferrigno film) and countless live TV performances and interviews, it was in Los Angeles that he stepped in front of the camera professionally at this stage in his life and supplemented his photography business by appearing in dozens of national commercials along with several TV show appearances. He was selected by Ridley Scott for a 7 UP commercial, played Kelly Bundy's last boyfriend on Married With Children and appeared several times in sketches on In Living Color and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno during the '90s and early 2000s. In 2007 he founded Ardenti Films, a boutique commercial production company specializing in the health & fitness industry. The company has since produced spots for American Gladiators Fitness, UFC Gym, Coast Fitness, Mutant, Pre Fight, Horsepower, Upload, Multi Power and Scorpion Helmets to name a few. In the summer of 2013 Juntobox Films, a company created by Forest Whittaker and Philippe Calland, gave him a green light to direct his first feature film "The Driver" scheduled for summer 2016. Almost simultaneously he was asked to co-write and direct "The Skinny Truth" a feature documentary on the obesity epidemic in the U.S. produced by Rehan Jalali and Ben Affleck also scheduled for 2016. Alex still collaborates as an editorial photographer with over 35 international publications and has produced countless advertising campaigns in the last 20 years. He has well over 1,500 published magazine covers to his credit and is considered by many to be one of the most creative and artistic forces in the fitness industry. Alex lives in Los Angeles with his wife Stephanie Richards, three baby boys: Ashton, August and Atticus. He visits family and friends regularly in Italy and Australia. Hide