James Gandolfini did not want to play a mafia guy, then the “sopranos” came

James Gandolfini is best known for playing a single character: Tony Soprano, the Bearish New Jersey gangster at the heart of the massively popular series of HBO “Sopranos. “But Jason Bailey's moment in Jimmy came much earlier, when he saw the Caper crime of 1993”True romance. “Directed by Tony Scott and written by an arrival named Quentin Tarantino, this film featured Gandolfini in a small but memorable role as Virgil, a thug that beats the Alabama by Patricia Arquette.

Bailey, the author of the new “Gandolfini” biography, was struck by what he now calls “the tension between apparently incompatible parts” within the actor. Virgile is vicious and terrifying, and, as Bailey says in an interview, “there is no faster shorthand for a snumbag than someone who defeats a defenseless woman.” But there is something in performance that suggests more than another garden variety monster. “In this scene, which could be just an absolutely brutal slog, he finds these moments of lightness and eccentricity,” said Bailey. “The fact that he can put through these nuances and incongruities in so little screen time is a really special actor. This is the scene, it is performance, it is the actor you remember, the one in which you have never heard.”

Soon, of course, everyone was hearing about him. “Sopranos” became an immediate cultural phenomenon when created in January 1999, a mafia drama with unusual depths of character development and narrative vigor. The series has helped launch a new golden age on television. And Gandolfini, deceased From a heart attack in 2013 at the age of 51, was the tumultuous soul of the series, playing a killer of Loutish with a rapid temperament and sad eyes. Tony Soprano's Gandolfini's separation may seem as futile as the separation of Carroll O'Connor from Archie Bunker or Mary Tyler Moore of Mary Richards. The tension between Gandolfini, the actor, and Tony, the character, were often difficult to live with the star.

Bailey, whose previous subjects of the book include “Pulp Fiction” and Richard Pryor, knows “The Sopranos” is the reason why most readers are attracted to a book on Gandolfinni, and his biography spends enough time and space on the series. Among those he interviewed was the regulars of the Edie Falco series, Steven Van Zandt, Vincent Pastore and Robert Iler. All clearly liked Gandolfini; They also easily admit that his demons, including his alcoholism, could make life on the difficult whole (Gandolfini's disappearances and the non-presentation have often thrown production in a turmoil).

But Bailey was also impatient to show another side of Gandolfini: an actor of an obsessive character who drives harshly and who worried about the memorization of the line and looked for projects and roles that cut what naturally became a hard character. For Bailey, the most emblematic of these is “Fairly said»(2013), The Romantic Sweet-Wire Comedy of Nicole Holofcener with Gandolfini opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Many people have interviewed that Bailey said that his character in the film, Albert, is similar in spirit to the real Gandolfini.

“It is the closest that he has ever obtained his real personality on the screen,” said Bailey. “Jim was like a bearded hippie, a goofball, a warm plush bear in Birkenstocks. It is such a charming performance that shows its range. You can't go further from Tony Soprano than Albert in “fairly said. The fact that he took his whole life to reach a point where he felt that sharing him at ease of himself in a role really speaks of the tragedy of losing it when we did it. »»

Some of Gandolfinni's choices would become the source of ironic humor. Gandolfinni felt uncomfortable at the idea of ​​playing Mafioso “Sammy the Bull” Gravano in the 1996 HBO film “Gotti”, but he still took the role. Then, at the last minute, he fell. He no longer wanted to play the guys from the mafia (irony n ° 1). Executive producer Gary Lucchesi was furious. As Bailey reports, Lucchesi swore “he would be Blackball Gandolfini”, and he “would never work in the film industry again. And he certainly Never work for HBO ”(irony 2).

The Gandolfini described in the book could be angry and unpredictable, but most of those who worked with him remember an extremely generous man, with his money – he often gushed for festivals and sumptuous dinners for his family “sopranos” – and a very elegant compliment. “It was an adorable grandmother -” MATTEO DREAWho played Adriana on “sopranos,” said Bailey. “He was a great man, kind and incredibly talented.”

Not that he always wanted to hear this. He could deposit compliments, but he was often too unsure to take them. Bailey gives the last word on the question to Iler, who played Tony's son, Anthony Jr. “I hate telling you: he would probably hate your book,” Iler in Bailey. “Just because of everyone's kindness, and how much we are going to talk about how much we love it and how incredible it is. He is So upset right away.”