film was 1977's Berlinguer, I Love You (Berlinguer ti voglio bene), also by Bertolucci. His popularity increased with L'altra domenica (1976–1979), another TV show of Arbore's in which Benigni portrayed a lazy film critic who never watches the films he's asked to review. Bernardo Bertolucci then cast him in a small speechless role as a window upholsterer in the film La Luna which had limited American distribution due to its subject matter. Career Early roles In 1980 he met Cesenate actress Nicoletta Braschi, who became his wife on 26 December 1991 and who has starred in most of the films he has directed. In June 1983 he appeared during a public political demonstration by the Italian Communist Party, with which he was a sympathiser, and on this occasion, he lifted and cradled the party's national leader Enrico Berlinguer. It was an unprecedented act, given that until that moment Italian politicians were proverbially serious and formal. Benigni was censored again in the 1980s for calling Pope John Paul II something impolite during an important live TV show ("Wojtylaccio", meaning "Bad Wojtyla" in Italian, but with a somewhat friendly meaning in Tuscan dialect). Benigni's first film as director was Tu mi turbi (You Upset Me) in 1983. This film was also his first collaboration with Braschi. In 1984, he played in Non ci resta che piangere ("Nothing Left to Do but Cry") with comic actor Massimo Troisi. The story was a fable in which the protagonists are suddenly thrown back in time to the 15th century, just a little before 1492. They start looking for Christopher Columbus in order to stop him from discovering the Americas (for very personal reasons), but are not able to reach him. Hollywood roles Beginning in 1986, Benigni starred in three films by American director Jim Jarmusch. In Down By Law (1986) (which in Italy had its title spelt "Daunbailò", in Italian phonetics) he played Bob, an innocent foreigner living in the United States, convicted of manslaughter, whose irrepressible good humour and optimism help him to escape and find love. (The film also starred Braschi as his beloved.) In Night on Earth, (1991) he played a cabbie in Rome, who causes his passenger, a priest, great discomfort and a heart attack by confessing his bizarre sexual experiences. Later, he also starred in the first of Jarmusch's series of short films, Coffee and Cigarettes (2003). In 1990, he