Young actor featured in 'Law and Order' episode
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer

GINNA DiLEO John D'Leo of Manalapan (r) takes a break on the set of "Law and Order" with Chris Meloni, who plays Detective Elliot Stabler.

Who knew that doing your homework could lead to an acting career? Certainly not 11-year-old John D'Leo, of Manalapan, who will play a featured role in the May 8 episode of the NBC-TV show "Law and Order: SVU."

The young actor's mom, Ginna DiLeo, said that about a year ago John, who was in pursuit of a current events article as part of a homework assignment, was perusing a newspaper when he came across an article about the Actors Training Institute in Eatontown.

Ginna said that for as long as she can remember, John had always watched television and commercials and commented, "I know I could do that."

So, she said, when he saw the article about an acting school so close to his home he told his parents that he wanted to attend the school. One thing led to another and Ginna said a talent agent who periodically visits the school seeking new people to represent saw John in action at one of his weekly acting classes and told Ginna her son had "something special."

Ginna said since no one was asking for any money to be put out to advance her son's career, she knew the agent was reputable and signed up John with the agent.

This all started for John almost a year ago and in the time leading up to his network television debut in a "Law and Order" episode titled "The Annihilator," the fifth-grader has appeared in two Chuck E. Cheese commercials that are presently airing on the Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.

Ginna and her husband, Chuck, run their business, Junior Golf America, from home so she said she is able to accommodate schedule changes that could come up at a moment's notice when John gets his next gig.

Ginna said John's brothers, who are 16 and 19, are completely supportive and encouraging of John, as are his parents.

John said he thought acting would be harder and that he would be nervous when it came down to actually doing it, especially his featured role on "Law and Order" in which he appears in three scenes. But, he said, "when the camera came on, all that went away and it was much more fun than I had expected."

The youngster said he loves the whole process of television and movie acting and would love the idea of pursuing acting as a career. His movie idols include Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and he said he would love to make his mark in action or military movies. He cites Willis' "Tears of the Sun" as being his favorite military movie.

John said science is his favorite subject in school and if acting doesn't pan out there will always be the challenge of pursuing his love of science. According to John, science is like acting in that he gets to satisfy his "curiosity about stuff and do experiments - find out how things work."

Given his ability to articulate his thoughts and his ability to act, things are likely to work out fine for John no matter which career path he ends up following.