Early life
Ginesi grew up in Sonoma, California. His father, Larry Ginesi, owns Illusions Lighting Design, giving Chris an early exposure to the technical and production side of the performing arts.2 He trained as an actor under Jim Jarrett, the founder of the Meisner Technique Studio in San Francisco, completing that program in 2007.1
Career
Theatre
After finishing his Meisner training, Ginesi founded Narrow Way Stage Company in the San Francisco Bay Area, eventually serving as its artistic director and overseeing more than forty productions. The company earned twenty-two awards during his tenure, including a Merit Award for Outstanding Cultural Contribution from the City of Santa Rosa. Among his personal acting honors is the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Biff in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at Novato Theatre Company.1 He also performed the title role in Coriolanus through Narrow Way and played Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men at Santa Rosa ART. As a director, he received an MTJA Award for his staging of Hand to God1 and produced and directed Stephen Sondheim's Assassins for Sonoma Arts Live.2
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
In 2015, Ginesi was accepted into the Master of Arts in Acting program at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, one of seventy actors chosen from more than five hundred applicants.2 He submitted his audition via video, performing two monologues: a passage from Shakespeare's Richard II and a comedic selection from a short play by Halley Feiffer.2 He departed for Scotland on September 13, 2015.2 A core component of the program was a residential placement at Shakespeare's Globe in London, where he played Silvius in a production of As You Like It.4 He was awarded his MA in Acting in 2016.1
Following his initial degree, Ginesi subsequently enrolled in a further program at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, pursuing an MFA in Classical and Contemporary Text (Class of 2025).1 He is represented by Eleanor Baker at Cavendish Hale.1
Film and screen work
Ginesi's screen credits include The Cut (2024), directed by Sean Ellis, in which he played the Ringside Announcer; Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024), directed by Gil Kenan; and American Sweatshop (2025), directed by Uta Briesewitz, in which he played Richard Kusser.3 He is also a principal and screenwriter at Whereaway Pictures.
Before his return to postgraduate training, Ginesi pursued acting stints in New York and Los Angeles before returning to Sonoma County. His stage credits also include The Flick with Shotgun Players and a Berkeley Repertory Theatre out-of-town tryout production of What the Constitution Means to Me.
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
In Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Ginesi played one of the Firefighters from 1904, members of Hook and Ladder Company 8 stationed at 14 North Moore Street in lower Manhattan. In the film's prologue, set in mid-July 1904, Company 8 is dispatched to the Manhattan Adventurers Society, where they discover a strange freezing mist filling the building. The fire captain's hand freezes to the door; the other firefighters free him and break the doors open with their axes. Inside they encounter an armored woman, later identified as the demon Garraka, whose sudden awakening shatters the frozen guests in front of them. The role is credited in the film as "Firefighters (1904)."
Costume designer Ruth Myers, who designed the 1904 firefighter costumes for Frozen Empire alongside fellow designer Alexis Forte, created the yellow used for the "8" on the Hook and Ladder Company 8 helmets; Forte replicated that same yellow for the "7" on the FDNY Ladder Company 7 helmets that appear at the end of the film.
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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"Chris Ginesi," Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.rcs.ac.uk/bio/chris-ginesi/
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Templeton, David (September 4, 2015). "Great Scot! Sonoma actor centerstage in Glasgow," Sonoma Index-Tribune. https://www.sonomanews.com/article/news/great-scot-sonoma-actor-centerstage-in-glasgow/
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"Chris Ginesi," IMDb, accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3746305/
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Templeton, David (March 10, 2016). "All the Globe's a stage for local actor," Sonoma Index-Tribune. https://www.sonomanews.com/article/news/all-the-globes-a-stage-for-local-actor/
