Scanavino grew up in Evergreen, Colorado, a community in the foothills of the Denver metropolitan area. He is of partial Italian descent through his paternal grandfather, who emigrated from Turin.[3] Both his parents were in the medical field but encouraged him and his older brother to pursue the arts. He had no inclination towards acting until he participated in a high school production of Hamlet.[4]
In 2005, Scanavino guest-starred on the NBC crime-drama series Law & Order: Criminal Intent in the fifth-season episode "Diamond Dogs" as petty criminal Johnny Feist. He was also a guest on Law & Order as a suspect who was a graphic designer in the 2009 episode "Just A Girl in the World".
In 2013, Scanavino guest-starred on the long-running NBC crime-drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in Season 14, Episode 13, "Monster's Legacy", as Johnny Dubcek. The same year, he starred in the independent romantic-comedy film Mutual Friends, directed by Matthew Watts.[9][10]
In 2014, Scanavino joined SVU in its sixteenth season, this time as Dominick Carisi Jr., nicknamed Sonny, a new SVU detective. Initially in a recurring capacity, Scanavino was promoted to the main cast in the fifth episode of the same season. According to SVU Executive Producer Warren Leight, Carisi "come[s] in and shake[s] things up" and is "a guy who maybe needs a little bit of refining."[11][12]
Scanavino noted that Carisi is "a total outsider. He's brusque and he doesn't really get the nuances and he's not very experienced so he puts his foot in his mouth a lot of times. But he's learning. He's picking it up. I think he's a good detective, but he's got a lot to learn on how to approach cases."[13][14]
Scanavino starred in an episode of Netflix's 2020 anthology series Social Distance as the father of his real-life son, Leo Bai-Scanavino.[15]
Personal life
Scanavino is married to painter Lisha Bai, with whom he has three children.[16][17][18]
