James Gandolfini didn't want to play a mafia boy, then 'sopranos' came

James Gandolfini is better known for playing a single character: Tony Soprano, New Jersey's gangster in the heart of the massively popular HBO series “The Sopranos”. But the moment of Jason Bailey Comment-Jimmy arrived much earlier, when he saw the power of the 1993 crime “true romance.” Directed by Tony Scott and written by a promising called Quentin Tarantino, that film introduced Gandolfini in a small but memorable role as Virgil, a thug that hits Patricia Arquette's Alabama.

Bailey, the author of the new biography “Gandolfini”, was beaten for what now calls “the tension between apparently incompatible parts” inside the actor. Virgil is vicious and scary, and, as Bailey expresses in an interview, “there is no faster tachigraphy for a goat than someone who hits a helpless woman.” But there is something in the performance that suggests more than another garden variety monster. “Within that scene, which could be an absolutely brutal job, find these moments of lightness and eccentricity,” Bailey said. “The fact that he can transmit those nuances and inconsistencies in such a short time screen, that is a really special actor. That is the scene, that is the performance, that is the actor you remember, which you had never heard having heard.”

Soon, of course, everyone would listen to him. “The sopranos” became an immediate cultural phenomenon when it was released in January 1999, a mafia drama with unusual depths of character development and narrative vigor. The series helped to launch a new era of television. And Gandolfini, who died of a heart attack in 2013 at age 51, was the stormy soul of the show, playing a murderer with mourning with fast temperament and sad eyes. Separating Gandolfini from Tony Soprano may seem as useless as separating Carroll O'Connor from Archie Bunker or Mary Tyler Moore of Mary Richards. The tension between Gandolfini, the actor, and Tony, the character, was often difficult to live for the star.

Bailey, whose topics of previous books include “Pulp Fiction” and Richard Pryor, knows that “The Sopranos” is the reason why most readers would be attracted to a book about Gandolfini, and his biography spends a wide time and space in the series. Among those he interviewed, the usual customers of the Edie Falco series, Steven Van Zandt, Vincent Pastore and Robert Iler. Everyone clearly loved Gandolfini; They also easily admit that their demons, including their alcoholism, could hinder life in the set (the disappearances of Gandolfini and the non -shows often threw production into agitation).

But Bailey was also anxious to show another side of Gandolfini: an obsessive actor who drives and drove that he worried about the memorization of the line and looked for projects and roles that became what naturally became a hard person. For Bailey, the most emblematic of these is “sufficient said” (2013), the bittersweet romantic comedy of Nicole Holofcener starring Gandolfini in front of Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Many people interviewed Bailey, said his character in the movie, Albert, is similar in spirit to the true Gandolfini.

“That is the closest that has reached his true real personality on the screen,” Bailey said. “Jim was like a hippie teddy bear, silly and warm heart in Birkestocks. It is such a charming performance that shows his range. You can't go further from Tony Soprano than Albert in 'enough said'. The fact that he took all his life to reach a point where he felt so comfortable sharing that much of himself really talks about the tragedy of losing him.

Some of Gandolfini's elections would become the source of ironic humor. Gandolfini felt restless about the idea of ​​playing the gangster “Sammy The Bull” Gravano in the 1996 HBO film “Gotti”, but took the role anyway. Then, at the last minute, he retired. I didn't want to play more guys from the mafia (irony No. 1). Executive producer Gary Lucchesi was furious. As Bailey reports, Lucchesi swore “Blackball Gandolfini”, and “he would never work in the film industry. And he certainly Never work for HBO ”(irony No. 2).

The Gandolfini described in the book could be bad and unpredictable, but most of those who worked with him remind an extremely generous man, with his money, he often emerged for parties and luxurious dinners for his family “sopranos”, and a compliment “She was a big and adorable mother,” Matteo Bailey Drea told Bailey Drea, who played Adriana in “The Sopranos,” he told Bailey. “He was a big, adorable, incredibly talented man.”

It's not that I never wanted to hear that. I could distribute compliments, but it was often too insecure to take them. Bailey gives the last word to Iler, who played Tony's son, Anthony Jr. “I hate telling you: he would probably hate your book,” Iler told Bailey. “Only for how pleasant everyone will be in him, and how much we are going to talk about how much we love him and how incredible he is. so angry right now.”