Ranking All Main Characters From Boardwalk Empire
11. Gyp Rossetti
From his first scene, all the way through to his last, Gyp held viewers' attention. It was a performance so gripping that Bobby Cannavale received a well-deserved Emmy Award for his portrayal as the hypersensitive, psychopathic mob boss.
An argument could be made that Gyp Rossetti was a little too homicidal, and maybe even a little stereotypical of the unhinged mafioso (think Joe Pesci in Goodfellas); but Gyp's outbursts of rage and homicide aren't an exaggerated play on the character - but a very well-written defence mechanism for a character deeply entrenched in insecurities.
His conflict with Nucky Thompson (and everyone else throughout the third season) comes from one person overreacting very poorly to something small. I'll let you figure out below which one it was. Gyp may have been a caricature, but he was a terrifying and violent figure within the show too. His unpredictability clashed so much with the likes of Nucky and Rothstein, he could make Al Capone look like a pussycat.
As the central antagonist of the third season, all that can be said about the character is that when he made his move on Nucky Thompson, he certainly wouldn't stop until he had consumed (or insulted) all of Atlantic City.
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