Making his screen acting debut on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in , he portrayed the lead role on the short-lived series Opposite Sex in before landing his breakthrough role in Gilmore Girls β Ventimiglia starred as Peter Petrelli in the superhero series Heroes β He also starred in the drama series The Company You Keep In film, Ventimiglia made his breakthrough as Rocky Balboa 's son in the sixth installment of the Rocky film series, Rocky Balboa , going on to reprise the role in the eighth installment Creed II During high school, Ventimiglia wrestled, acted in drama productions and served as student government president, graduating in At eighteen, Ventimiglia studied at the American Conservatory Theater for their summer program, [ 6 ] subsequently attending the University of California, Los Angeles as a theatre major.
At eighteen, Ventimiglia pursued an acting career, first starring as a gay teenager in Must Be the Music , a short film released as part of Strand Releasing's Boys Life 2. From to , Ventimiglia played brooding teen Jess Mariano on Gilmore Girls ; he was introduced in the second season as a leading cast member.
He signed on for a spin-off of Gilmore Girls called Windward Circle which was to be focused on the relationship between Jess and his estranged father played by Rob Estes , but the proposed series never made it to air. He starred in the mid-season replacement series The Bedford Diaries.
The producers had only Ventimiglia in mind, but the show lasted only eight episodes and was one of several shows not picked up by the newly formed network The CW. In between television work, Ventimiglia had supporting roles in the horror films Cursed , directed by Wes Craven , and Stay Alive , as well as starring roles in the short film Intelligence and the full-length feature Dirty Deeds The same year, he was cast as Robert "Rocky Jr.
He starred as Peter Petrelli in the NBC series Heroes , a show about "ordinary" people discovering they have superpowers, and portrayed the character until the series' conclusion in Ventimiglia also produced and developed a mini web-series called It's a Mall World as part of a marketing campaign for American Eagle Outfitters in In , he starred as a medical student in the horror film Pathology. The comic is about John Barrett, a white-collar New Yorker whose life changes when he becomes addicted to a drug that prevents him from falling asleep.
