A new book on the life and career of James Gandolfini, the man best known for bringing Tony Soprano to life and helping to usher in a Golden Age of Prestige Television, contained at least one shocking revelation: The Sopranos creator David Chase initially worried Gandolfini wasn’t “threatening enough” to play the troubled mobster.
In an excerpt from Jason Bailey’s new book, Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend, which was published in Vulture, Bailey details the casting process for the role, which started with Nancy Sanders, one of Gandolfini’s managers, contacting Chase to tell him that she had just the actor in mind.
After viewing Gandolfini’s reel, Chase called her back and told her, “Alright, here’s the deal. I think he’s brilliant. I have one concern, and that is: Is he threatening enough?”
Sanders was quick to assure him, “David, if your only concern is is he threatening enough… If you said to me, ‘He’s a little chubby,’ or ‘He’s losing his hair,’ I could understand. But he’s threatening enough. This is your guy.”
When conceiving of The Sopranos as a movie, Chase struggled to see anyone other than Academy Award winner Robert De Niro, known for playing mafiosos in acclaimed films like The Godfather and Goodfellas, in the role. He said of De Niro, “There was never anyone after that, seriously, who I thought could be Tony Soprano.”
In order to secure the role, Gandolfini had to meet Chase for breakfast before meeting HBO executives, at which point he also offered to read for the part, saying, “I was born to play Tony… I wanted it so much I agreed to audition for it.”
“When he finally settled down and really did a reading, it was just obvious,” Chase said of Gandolfini. “There was just not any question about it. He was the guy.”
Gandolfini would go on to be nominated for six Emmy Awards for his work as Tony Soprano, winning three, in addition to a Golden Globe and three SAG Awards. The show, which aired for six seasons before ending in 2007, is widely considered one of the best television shows of all-time, and is credited with helping legitimize television as an art form and kickstarting the Golden Age of Television.
Gandolfini died of a heart attack in Rome in 2013 at the age of 51, leaving behind a wife and two children. His son Michael Gandolfini, also an actor, played a younger version of Tony Soprano in the 2021 film The Many Saints of Newark.
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