"I'd hang out in his trailer" - Michael Gandolfini reveals why dad James wouldn't let him roam free on set

American actor Michael Gandolfini, whose recent film Warfare was released a couple of weeks ago, spoke to The Wall Street Journal. In the interview, Gandolfini shared his childhood experience of being on the set of The Sopranos, the critically acclaimed HBO series, in which his father, James Gandolfini, played the lead.

Michael Gandolfini shared:

“When I’d visit him on the Sopranos set, I’d hang out in his trailer…my parents didn’t want me outside on set, exposed to the show’s violence and language.”

In The Sopranos, a series which ran for seven seasons, James Gandolfini played the character of Tony Soprano, an Italian American mafia boss, who steers the functioning of his criminal organization while struggling with the complexities of his family life.

As per a report by Fox News, James Gandolfini himself struggled to deal with the aggressive nature of the character. The same report quoted Mark Kamine, the location manager of the show. Kamine noted that there was a stark difference between the character and the actor, the actor was soft spoken while the character was the opposite. According to Fox News, Kamine was quoted as saying:

“He wasn’t a boisterous or loud personality. He wasn’t scary – Tony often was. Jim pretty much kept to himself…But then, you saw this powerful character who commanded a room. He became Tony so quickly on set. But it wasn’t easy, even for him…You saw how disturbed he would get by the things he had to say in character”

Michael Gandolfini’s early interest in acting explored

Michael Gandolfini was very young when the acclaimed crime drama The Sopranos was being shot. In fact, the first season aired the same year he was born, and the show’s last season concluded when he was eight years old. According to Gandolfini, the very fact that he was barred from experiencing the filming process attracted him to the craft of acting. In the interview with The Wall Street Journal, Gandolfini shared:

“I just wanted to create imaginative worlds, act out stories I made up with friends and tape them using my camcorder. Pretending was what calmed me…Being excluded on set drove me crazy. My parents were protective and wanted me to enjoy being a kid”

After graduating from high school, Gandolfini studied acting at New York University. In 2021, Gandolfini bagged his first big role. As luck would have it, Gandolfini was selected to play Tony Soprano, a character who had made his father a legend.

The 2021 film The Many Saints of Newark was based on a prequel to The Sopranos. In the film, Michael Gandolfini portrayed Tony Soprano during his teenage years. Sharing his process of preparing for the role, Gandolfini told The Wall Street Journal:

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“The Many Saints of Newark was a transformative role. To play Tony as a teen, I had to get a full sense of him, but I’d never watched an episode of The Sopranos. Going through the series to prep wasn’t like watching home movies. Tony was a role, and there were many layers to what my dad was doing with the character.”

Michael Gandolfini further shared that his father continues to be a guiding force in his life. James Gandolfini passed away in 2013, after suffering a cardiac arrest.

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