Thursday, May 22, 2025
Chris Fiore isn’t a household name—yet. But if you’ve been watching “Daredevil: Born Again” and thought—Wait, is that the same guy from the blood donation commercial?—you’re not alone. The 23-year-old actor from Valley Stream has recently gone from voice acting to the lead of a nonprofit commercial to dying dramatically in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
His on-screen death may have been brief, but it has helped opened the door to a blooming acting career.
Before Daredevil, there was the New York Blood Center commercial, where Fiore played the “hero” of a retro-style video game world, having the kind of catastrophically bad day that only gets redeemed when he donates blood.
“It was my first true professional gig,” Fiore recalls. “I got really lucky. It was a big production, and I was just kind of thrust into it. But it was a great experience and I am lucky to have it right off the bat.”
So how does a kid from the South Shore go from acting on Valley Stream streets to a Marvel set?
“My dad was actually a screenwriter,” Fiore explains. “He used to be NYPD, then retired and started making short films around Valley Stream with friends. I’d tag along as a kid and just be around that creative chaos. That’s really where the spark started for me.”
By the time Fiore was 19, he got serious about it, enrolling in the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in Manhattan.
“I needed to know if I loved the craft or just the idea of acting,” he says. “And once I started doing the deep, internal work—really digging into characters—I just couldn’t turn away from it.”
“He always was articulate and creative,” said Ben, Chris’ father. “When he’d go to the movies, I noticed a vibe from him that said, ‘I can do this. It’s what I want to do.’ And he approached it with great passion.”
Fiore has a refreshing take on what it means to act. It’s not about masks or transformations, he says.
“From the outside, it looks like you’re trying to become someone else. But acting is actually really introspective. You’re pulling from your own life, your imagination—it’s all already inside you.”
That approach paid off when the Daredevil audition came through his manager.
“All I knew was it was a Marvel project. I didn’t even know if it was a film or TV,” he recalls, but he submitted his audition to play an unsuspecting looter gunned down by a hit squad.
“Death scenes are some of the most intimate moments to perform. But I had fun with it—I treated the audition like its own little, short film.”
Within an hour of submitting his tape, Fiore got the call and was asked to do an availability check—basically the casting world’s version of you’re about to get the job. A few days later, while unloading groceries, the official call came in: he was cast.
The work that followed was surreal. “First, a fitting day to get the outfit right. Then a full-body 3D scan with hundreds of cameras circling me. And finally, the shoot,” he says. “It was a long day, but I even got to do my own stunts.”
Since then, the buzz around his scene—without spoiling too much—has been bigger than expected. “It’s great to see people responding to it. It meant something,” he says.
And now, thanks to the combined force of Marvel and personal persistence, Fiore is signed with Exclusive Artist Agency and Dream Maker Talent Management. “There are some exciting things coming. I can’t say too much yet, but we’re building off the momentum.”
Still, Fiore stays grounded. He credits his family and tight circle of friends for keeping him “very much himself.”
“I thought I might feel different, being recognized,” he says. “But honestly, it’s the opposite. I feel more like myself than ever.”
Marci, Chris’ moms, says Chris “balances it very well as he knows it is a very hard and competitive career to get into but his passion keeps him going.”
Have an opinion on this article? Send an email to jlasso@liherald.com.
