The Chase Lounge

I did one of the only one-on-one interviews with him, way back in late 1998, before The Sopranos premiered on HBO.

Two days before our scheduled interview, he called my house. My wife answered the phone.

“Yes?” she said.

Then her jaw dropped. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “It’s James Gandolfini!”

She loved Gandolfini. She’d had a crush on him ever since she saw him play Geena Davis’ boyfriend in Angie.

Then she held up a silencing finger because Gandolfini was already talking, nervously. Stammering, practically.

“Okay,” she said to him. “All right. Well, OK. Well. Well ... Well, I don’t know about that. Are you sure?”

Long pause.

“It might not be so bad,” she told him. “You never know. You know what? I think this is a conversation that you really should have with Matt. Hold on a second, he’s right here.”

When I picked up the receiver, Gandolfini said, “Hey, listen, I’ve been thinking about it, and I really think it’s better if I don’t do this interview.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“I just don’t see how I’d have anything interesting to say,” he said. “Why would anybody care? I’m just not that interesting. Who cares what some actor has to say about anything? I’ll just come off sounding like an idiot.”

He was silent for an awkward moment.

Then he said, “I don’t want to get you in trouble with your bosses, though. So I thought I should talk to you about it, and ask you if maybe there was some way we could not do this thing. And just … not do it. Without causing a problem for you. Or for me.”

Somehow I managed to talk him into doing the interview anyhow.

There was no blowout premiere party for season one of The Sopranos because nobody had any idea how big it would become. Season two was a different story. HBO rented out Radio City Music Hall. The cast and crew and executives arrived in limousines, as is customary. James Gandolfini arrived in a yellow cab.

At the after-party, I asked him why.

“My family’s here,” he said. “My friends are here. Guys I grew up with are here. Some of them came by train or by the subway to get here, or they drove three hours in a van or whatever. What are they gonna think if they see me getting out of a limo?”

there was always something about the guy that you wanted to embrace.

You could feel it shining through the screen, that warmth and vulnerability, that broken yet still-hopeful humanness.

That’s what made Tony Soprano, a bully and killer and cheater and disgusting hypocrite, so likable. The decent part of Tony, the part that stood in for the tragically wasted human potential Dr. Melfi kept trying to tease out and embrace, came from Gandolfini. His humanity shone through Tony’s rotten façade. When people said they sensed good in Tony, it was James Gandolfini they sensed.

I am shocked and devastated by Jim’s passing. He was a man of tremendous depth and sensitivity, with a kindness and generosity beyond words. I consider myself very lucky to have spent 10 years as his close colleague. My heart goes out to his family. As those of us in his pretend one hold on to the memories of our intense and beautiful time together. The love between Tony and Carmela was one of the greatest I’ve ever known.

FlyOnMelfisWall wrote:Very nice article, thanks so much for the link, sopranology.

I found this quote particularly spot on:

And I think that's what Chase was referring to when he talked about Gandolfini's "genius". At some point in the next day or so, I hope to find Chase's exact quotes from, I think, a season 2 interview with Fresh Air where he talks about why Gandolfini's rare gift was the thing without which there would be no Sopranos. It's a tremendous echo of what the above author is saying.

I always go for the actor. If the actor who came in to read for this part had been Cary Grant, and it had worked, I probably would have said "fine, let's do that." But, we didn't. What, really, we were blessed enough to have happen is that James Gandolfini came through our door. And I honestly mean this: without Jim Gandolfini, there is no Sopranos. There is no Tony Soprano. He is so integral to, I think... People always ask me, "Why do people like this show so much? Why the furor?" And it's because of him. That's why the whole thing, I think, is so identifiable to so many people, because he just is so human. And people respond to him. Their hearts and their heads go out to him, despite, the heinous things he's doing onscreen.

(Interviewer: There's something very 'average guy' looking about him.)

Well, it's more than that. I don't think he is that average. I think he is a very, very sensitive - hypersenstive - man. And I think he reflects his environment in a very, very rarefied way. And he comes off as the regular Joe, y'know, but I think what's going on there is you have a very, very, extremely emotional person, and sensitive person. And that's what Tony Soprano has become, as a result of him.