Fresh Air - Inside The Making Of 'The Sopranos'

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

25 years ago, The Sopranos premiered on HBO and changed expectations of what TV could be. There's a new two-part documentary, called Wise Guy, about the making of the show, centering on the series creator and executive producer, David Chase. We're using that as an excuse to revisit our interviews with Chase, as well as Lorraine Bracco, who played Tony's psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi, and Michael Imperioli, who played Tony's impetuous nephew. Film critic Justin Chang reviews Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. This is Fresh Air. I'm TV critic David Bianculli. 25 years ago, in January 1999, HBO premiered a new drama series called The Sopranos, created by David Chase and starring James Gandolfini as New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano. It had a major impact on television viewers and TV history from start to finish, especially that infamous finish. On the show's silver anniversary, HBO looks back with a new documentary on The Sopranos and the people who collaborated to make it. We'll look back, too, revisiting some of our archival Fresh Air interviews from some

of the artists who worked on the series. But first, let's start with my review of the new HBO documentary. Director Alex Gibney's two-part documentary, presented this weekend on HBO and then streaming on Max, is called Wiseguy, David Chase and the Sopranos. It's new to television, but already premiered in June at the Tribeca Film Festival. In Gibney's long career, he's done deep-dive documentaries on everything from Enron and Scientology to Robin Williams and Pornhub. Last year, he directed an outstanding two-part documentary called In Restless Dreams, The Music of Paul Simon. And now, Gibney directs another inventively framed two-parter, one that also aims to examine the life and process of a creative artist.

David Chase, this profile establishes quickly, was turned on by movies. Fellini's Eight and a Half was the first lightning bolt, followed by films by Polanski, Goddard, and others. Chase's dream was to write and direct for the big screen, but he ended up working in television instead. Gibney speeds through the apprenticeship phase of Chase's career much too quickly. It's my only criticism of an otherwise perfectly crafted documentary. Chase's early work on such significant TV shows as Northern Exposure and I'll Away, is dismissed in a single sentence. And what I consider one of Chase's most instructive and impressive early efforts,

the 1970s cult series, Kolchak the Night Stalker, isn't even mentioned. But otherwise, Wise Guy, David Chase, and the Sopranos is a very complete and compelling case study. Chase obviously trusts Gibney as a fellow creative artist and gives him gem after gem from The Sopranos vault. Original audition tapes by actors who were and weren't cast. Outtakes from throughout the six-season, seven-year series. Tearful excerpts from Chase speaking at the funeral service for James Gandolfini, who died young at age 51. That was six years after The Sopranos televised that still-controversial finale in 2007.

Chase gives Gibney so much trust, in fact, that he agrees to sit down for interviews with him in a replica of the office of Lorraine Bracco's Dr. Melfi, who guided Gandolfini's Tony Soprano through therapy. This time, it's Chase in the hot seat, with Gibney doing the probing. The first morning of filming their conversation, Chase is effusive. But after lunch, returning to the office and to chairs that seem so much like Melfi's, Chase tells Gibney he's eyeing the exit. And I would leave now, but I see what you've done, all this stuff, and yeah, it was a round office. It looks a lot like it. I did say I'd do this, but what I said was,

yeah, I'll be part of this Sopranos documentary. But I didn't realize it was going to be about me. David Chase may not be having a good time here, but Gibney sure is. He uses the Sopranos opening theme song for his documentary's own credits and reshoots the credits so that the typefaces are identical and Chase, not Tony Soprano, is seen driving the familiar route to New Jersey. Gibney laces together the dream sequences from various episodes and uses new and vintage interviews to get insights from, and about, all the major cast members.

The trivia collected here is dizzying. When Chase first wrote The Sopranos, it was a self-contained movie about a mobster and his domineering mother, and he wanted Robert De Niro and Anne Bancroft to star. He hired one cast member for the series from an open casting cattle call in New Jersey, and hired Stephen Van Zandt, guitarist for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, after watching him on TV inducting the Rascals into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Van Zandt tells Gibney his side of that story. I get a lot of scripts for music, not for acting. I wasn't an actor.

And David Chase calls, you know, I get on the phone. So what was that first conversation like? Well, it was a little weird because he says, you know, what do you think? I said, well, it's a great script. What kind of music are you thinking of? He says, no, no, no, we want you to be in it. I said, I'm not an actor. Isn't that kind of a prerequisite for this whole TV thing?

And he says, yes, you are an actor. You just don't know it yet. Van Zandt read for the role of Tony Soprano. He didn't get it, of course. But Chase loved Van Zandt so much, Chase wrote a new character, Silvio Dante, just for him. And all the audition tapes, not just his, are fascinating. You can really see and hear why Nancy Marchant was cast as Tony's mother, Livia. and, most of all, why James Gandolfini won the starring role of Tony. Chase tells Gibney that Gandolfini simply was Tony, but suggests his performance may have come at a cost.

It's an assessment the actor himself, in a vintage interview clip, doesn't dispute. We hear David Chase first, then Gandolfini. I think what Jim didn't know or expect is just how difficult it is to be the lead of a series. I had no clue. I walked in with a big smile on my face, and I got punched right in the nose. And I said, OK, I've got to figure out some way to do this.

I had no clue how to prepare for it. Gibney guides Chase gently but firmly through all this terrain. Some of it is rough and emotional. But some of the conversation is chatty and funny, even when it's insightful. Like the very quick exchange about the show's entire concept

of a mob boss undergoing therapy. Theoretically, therapy is supposed to make you a better person. All right, let me hear it. Instead, it made him a better mobster. Then there's the revelation about Chase's particular writing method. He tells Gibney how he drew his own spreadsheets for each season, making squares for each episode and character, then filling them in. It was always 13 episodes, so I'd make make 13 lines then i'd start making lines like that

it would say tony what does tony do in episode one what does tony do in episode two what happens and that was containing a plot then i started adding carmella what's carmella doing she had her own season chris they all had their own seasons. Some of them had two or three. Tony would have two or three lines of what happened to him in that season. Then I would get back, I would lay it all out for the writers so they knew what the direction of the season was, and then we'd sit down and we'd say, all right, episode one, I know what it says up here,

but what's this really going to be about? You'll learn a lot about The Sopranos from watching this two-part documentary. Some of it is general, like why The Sopranos really is one of the most important series in the history of television. But it's also, for fans of the show, thrillingly specific. In that fake therapy office, Gibney even gets chased to address the show's still wildly debated finale, and how inspiration for it was drawn partly from, believe it or not, Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey. Gibney handles this discussion of the show's last episode and its cut-to-black final image in a way that delighted me to no end. Literally. After the second season of The Sopranos, Terry spoke

with David Chase, the show's creator and executive producer. He also wrote and directed many of the episodes. Before we hear an excerpt of that interview, let's hear a clip that displays the humor in The Sopranos. In this scene early in the series, James Gandolfini, who plays Tony Soprano, is talking with another mobster, Bobby, played by Steve Sciarrappa. Nostradamus Quasimodo's the hunchback of Notre Dame Oh right Nostradamus Nostradamus And Notre Dame

It's two different things completely It's interesting though To be so similar isn't it And I always thought okay Hunchback of Notre Dame You also got your quarterback And, hunchback of Notre Dame. You also got your quarterback and your halfback of Notre Dame. What's a f***ing cathedral?

Obviously, I know. I'm just saying. It's interesting, the coincidence. What? You're going to tell me you never pondered that? The back thing with Notre Dame? No. Terry spoke with David Chase in 2000. It seems to me that The Sopranos started off with a little bit more comedy, and that it's become just more tragic for the characters

as time goes on. I know. People have said that, and I didn't realize that. I don't see it that way. You don't see it that way? I don't. The last show, we did a sudden U-turn, if that's what people are talking about.

The last show of the second season. Mm-hmm, the last show of the second season. In that, there was a plan, we had a plan for Tony's emotional growth or lack of growth throughout the first season. The idea we carried over from the first season was, okay, based on what we seem to remember about therapy or know about therapy,

if you compress it all, and of course it takes much longer than this, you get to a point, my parents did this, my parents did that, you're slamming your parents, the shrink is saying, oh, those parents you had, what do you expect? You can't be any better than you are. And you go through that, and then you get to a point where it's okay, so your parents were your parents, now what are you going to do? As a shrink once said to me now what are you going to do? As a shrink once said to me,

what would you like to do? Should we have an auto-da-fay and burn the old lady at the stake? And she's your mother, what can you do about it? And so we got to that point in the show, and the second season was about, actually, Tony realizing that people kept saying to him he was his own worst enemy, that the seeds of his own destruction and his problems were internal,

as they are with all of us, really. In the end, you're here and there's no excuses for who you are. As we were doing show 13, I suddenly, something in me kind of snapped and I got tired of some of the moralizing that some of the characters were doing. And I began to feel that Tony Soprano is a gangster, he is a mobster, end of story. And that's enough said about him

as regards his, quote-unquote, internal development for now. And so in the end, the feeling that I got from the last show was that... And I thought it was also necessary to remind the audience, this is a mobster. This is a gangster. You may think he's lovable. He's also a very, very scary man. Let's hear a scene between Tony and his psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi, from about three episodes from the end of last season. And this gets a little bit to what you're talking about. This conversation isn't about Tony's mother.

It's about who Tony is and the kind of problems he's responsible for of his own volition in the work that he's doing and in the crimes that he's committing. So here's Tony with Dr. Melfi. Do you know why a shark keeps moving? They got to keep moving or they'll die. They can't breathe or something.

There's a psychological condition known as elixithymia, common in certain personalities. The individual craves almost ceaseless action, which enables them to avoid acknowledging the abhorrent things they do. Abhorrent? What certain personalities? Antisocial personalities. My future brother-in-law. Ran over a guy. No reason. Guy's paralyzed.

Has to piss into a cathode tube. What happens when these antisocial personalities aren't distracted from the horrible s*** they do? They have time to think about their behavior. How what they do affects other people. About feelings of emptiness and self-loathing, haunting them since childhood. And they crash. The scene from The Sopranos, my guest is the creator and executive producer of the series, David Chase.

Where does that scene take us in the development of Tony? Well, it was intended to be building toward some sort of conclusion or some kind of self-awareness on Tony's part, self-awareness on Tony's part that he, that it's, it's no longer, you can no longer blame your parents, your mother, you cannot go through your life or go through therapy, um, just leaning on that crutch all the time that after a while it's you, time, that after a while, it's you. The problem is you. It's strange.

As you were playing that scene, I felt the scene with Melfi, I felt very sorry for Tony Soprano. I actually got choked up. I sort of heard it for the first time. Because she's not only saying to him, this is what you do to other people, but she's saying to him, this is what you do to other people, but she's saying to him that underneath that,

there's this just little scared person who just hates himself. And I felt compassion for the guy. Well, you're so lucky to have found in James Gandolfini someone who has such an interesting face to watch, and his face is kind of mercurial. I mean, although I'm sure he's trying not to betray what he's thinking, you can see what he's thinking on his face.

And sometimes he looks very weak and vulnerable and sometimes he's incredibly cold-blooded looking. How did you find him? Oh, and let me ask you one thing too in terms of looking for him. You've cast at the center of the series someone who is a very charismatic actor, but he's not a leading man kind of looking actor.

He's got a pot belly, receding hairline, pudgy face. It's not Al Pacino. No. 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's no Tony Soprano. He is so integral to I think a lot of the people always ask me, what do you attribute, 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 on screen. There's only a very average guy looking about him.

Oh, it's more than that. I don't think he is that average. I think he is a very, very sensitive, hypersensitive man. And I think he reflects his environment in a very, very rarefied way. And he comes off as the regular Joe, you 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. Edie Falco plays the role of Carmela. What did you tell Edie Falco about the character of Carmela

after you cast her? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just comes in, does her work. No direction, honest to God. No direction, no nothing. That's the case with most of these actors. There's very little directing going on.

Well, here's a scene between Carmela and Tony from The Sopranos. I hope you apologize to him. For what? Tony, you promised him you were going to be at his swim meet. Oh, s***, I forgot. How could you forget? Something I had to do. Tony, he almost came in second. You should have seen

his face when you weren't there. I saw his face the other day when he had to go to the mall when I wanted to take him to the movies. What are you, six years old? I said I'd try to be there. What is with you, Tony? This whole week, you're like an alien life form among us.

There's nothing wrong. Thank you for sharing. You know what? Leave me the fuck alone. I'm exhausted. I'll make it up to him in the swim meet. So where were you? Did you go see Christopher at the hospital?

Yeah, I went to see Christopher at the hospital. Wherever you were, it couldn't have been more important than letting your son know that you care about him no only you care my guess is david chase and he's the creator and executive producer of the sopranos when you were growing up were there movies that really scared the heck out of you but you couldn't take your eyes off of them of Yes. That's the kind of movies I always liked. As I said, I was a scaredy kid. And yet,

horror movies and scary movies to me were, I could not get enough of them. And I think I found things to be terrified of in movies other people didn't. I think a pretty big influence on me was this William Wellman movie,

The Public Enemy, which I saw on Million Dollar Movie when I was probably eight or nine. And they would play a movie all week long. And in it, there's the gangster Tom Powers. It's the moment where Cagney's finally, after this life of crime. Actually, the mother is very important

in that movie, too. He's got this sort of sweet little old Irish mother. But after this horrible life of crime. Actually, the mother is very important in that movie, too. He's got this sort of sweet little old Irish mother. But after this horrible life of crime and smashing the grapefruit into that woman's face and everything else that he did, he gets shot, and he says, I ain't so tough, and he collapses on his knees. But at the end of the movie, he's in a hospital, and the rival gang calls his mother's house and says, we're sending Tom home. And his brother runs up and says, Ma, Ma, they're bringing Tom home. And she puts on this I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles record and it's playing. And she's making the bed and she's sort of singing and feathers are going every place.

She's happy and his brother's all excited. He's coming home and then there's a knock on the door. And the brother opens the door and you see Cagney's wrapped up in a blanket with his head all in bandages from the hospital tied up like a mummy, and he's dead. And he's dead eyes, and he just sort of topples toward camera right into the lens. That's the end of the movie. This was the most frightening thing I'd ever seen. I was scared about this for a month. I could not get that out of my mind.

What was it that was so scary? I don't know to this day. Just the idea, those people's expectations in the house, it's actually making me kind of sad. I don't know, their expectations of what was going to happen and what really did happen, that they were so happy that he was coming home and he was dead in such a horrible way and how he wasted his life. David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, talking with Terry Gross in 2000. The series is 25 years old.

A new two-part documentary, Wise Guy, David Chase and the Sopranos, premieres Saturday on HBO. Coming up, we hear from two of the cast members from The Sopranos. I'm David Bianculli, and this is Fresh Air. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today, or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Numbers that explain the economy. We love them at the Indicator from Planet Money, T's and C's apply. Wrap up your week and listen to The Indicator podcast from NPR. This message comes from Wondery. Kill List is a true story of how one journalist ended up in a race against time to warn those on the list whose lives were in danger.

Follow Kill List wherever you get your podcasts. Here at Planet Money, we bring complex economic ideas down to Earth. We find weird, fun, interesting stories that explain the way money shapes our lives. Inflation, recessions, the price of gas, we've got you. Listen now to the Planet Money podcast from NPR. The groundbreaking HBO series The Sopranos premiered 25 years ago in January 1999. Lorraine Bracco co-starred in the series as Dr. Melfi, Tony Soprano's psychiatrist. Before that, she starred as the wife of wise guy Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas.

Terry Gross spoke with her in 2006. At the time, she had written a memoir, which in part revealed her own bout with depression. Here's a scene from The Sopranos. Tony Soprano is in Dr. Melfi's office. He's just told her he hates his son, A.J. Anthony, I think your anger towards A.J. has been building for some time. We have to deal with this. All I know is it's a good thing my father's not alive, because let me tell you, he'd find this f***ing hilarious. Find what hilarious? The kind of son I produced. You mean because Anthony doesn't conform to your father's idea of what a man should be? His, mine, or anybody's.

Let me tell you, if Carmella let me kick AJ's ass like my father kicked my ass, he might have grown up with some balls. Like you. Yeah, like me. He might have also grown up taking out his anger at his father's brutality towards him on others. He might have grown up with a desperate need to dominate and control. Anthony, we've been dancing around this for years. How you live. What is it you want from your life?

I couldn't even hit him if I wanted to. He's so little. It's Carmela's side of the family. They're small people. Her father, you could knock him over with a feather. Okay. But I have to point out, what you resent Carmela doing for A.J., protecting him from his father, is the very thing you had often wished your mother had done for you. Lorraine Bracco, welcome to Fresh Air. Now, David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, wanted you to play Carmela, Tony's wife, when the series was starting. But you turned that down.

It's such a big part and such a great part. You say in your book that you didn't want to play another mob wife after you became so famous for that in Goodfellas. But I still think that must have been really hard to turn that down. Did you ever have second thoughts about turning it down, seeing what a great role it was. Well, you know, again, you know, with David, when we talked about it, I did it. I didn't think I could do it any better. And Melfi jumped off the page for me. I thought she was an Italian-American educated woman, someone we've never seen, a relationship with a mobster character that you've never seen. That was exciting to play. Now, when the series started, you were going through a terrible depression,

which you write about in your new memoir. You were going through a bad separation with Harvey Keitel, who you'd been with for years. You had a daughter together, and you were having a custody battle over your daughter. Oh, and you were very, very deep in debt, like $2 million, in part because of the steep legal fees that you had to pay. And you finally went into therapy. Did therapy help you through that depression? Oh, yes, it did.

And medication helped me. What are the therapy, since you're playing a therapist now and have to really think about the value and the limitations of therapy, what did the therapy do for you? What are some of the insights that it gave you that you could actually use to change your life? All right. Well, you know, when you ask that question, my mind is going all over the place. A couple of things I want you to know. David Chase has been through therapy. And when I met David and we talked about Dr. Melfi, one of the things I said to him was, listen, I don't really know you very well right now and you don't know me, but I've been in therapy, and I've been in crisis mode. And I said to him, the therapy had been very important to me, and I wasn't willing to make a mockery of therapy. I was not willing to become the psycho killer.

I wasn't willing to become the sex fiend psychiatrist. And if he had those plans for this character, I was not his girl. And David was very honest and open with me and said he'd been in therapy and been through a lot. And no, he wasn't going to make a mockery of the therapy. Would he take a little artistic license? Yes. I said that I could live with. Now, you first became really well known for your role in Goodfellas as Karen Hill, you know, the woman who becomes the wife of the wise guy of the film, the small-time mobster, Henry Hill. It was directed by Martin Scorsese, who you already knew through your longtime partner, Harvey Keitel. So you say in your book that you had auditioned for

one of Scorsese's earlier movies, and he didn't give you that part, but he said he would give you a part someday, and Goodfellas was that someday. And you also say that you didn't exactly audition for it. What was, if it wasn't an audition exactly, what was it? Well, Marty had met me. He knew me. I had already worked a little bit, so he'd seen me on the screen. And what he did was he had me come up

to his apartment and meet him and Ray Liotta. And we sat and talked and had a drink for a while. And I think what he was doing was really matching me up with Ray. I want to play a scene from Goodfellas, and this is a scene, you and Henry Hill have recently married, but you're both living in your parents' house. And in this scene, Henry Hill has been out all night, and it's not the first time, and your mother is really mad at him, and I think she's kind of mad at you for marrying him in the first time and your mother is really mad at him

and I think she's kind of mad at you for marrying him in the first place. So this is a scene with you and your mother. And just, I know this has got nothing to do with nothing, but you realize Suzanne Shepard, who plays my mother in Goodfellas, plays... Come on, Terry.

Come on, it's a great trivia question. I don't know. Plays Edie's mother in Sopranos. No, really? Same actress. I didn't realize that. Ah, see? Oh, you got me. That's great.

All right, just a little trivia. Well, that's great. Well, let's hear the scene, and we can think about that as we listen. He didn't call? He's with his friends. What kind of a person doesn't call? Ma, he's a grown-up. He doesn't have to call every five minutes. If he was such a grown-up, why doesn't he get you to an apartment? Don't start. Mom, you're the one who wanted us here. Listen, you're here a month and sometimes I know he doesn't come home at all. What kind of people are these? Mom, what do you want me to do? Do? What can you do? He's not Jewish. Did you know how these people live? Did you know what

they were like? Your father never stayed out all night without calling. Stay out? Daddy never went out at all, Ma. Keep out of it. You don't know how I feel. Feel? How do you feel now? You don't know where he is. You don't know who he's with. He's with his friends. Dad! Will you leave him out of this? He's suffered enough. The man hasn't been able to digest a decent meal in six weeks. That's my guest Lorraine Bracco with Suzanne Shepard in a scene from Goodfellas. I have another question about Dr. Melfi. One of the things I sometimes wonder about Dr. Melfi is this. When seeing Tony Soprano, would she really be wearing skirts and stockings that reveal her very beautiful legs?

Or would she be trying to be as non-sexual as possible in a therapy relationship like that. Okay, so I have a couple of things on the subject. You ready? Yes. One, Terry. Yes. It is a TV show. And Mr. Gandolfini goes to our fantastic costume designer, Juliet, and begs her to shorten my skirts. Just so you know, a you know me and if you meet me, you will see I'm a much more alive woman than Dr. Melfi. And I have a big sexuality about me.

So Dr. Melfi is, for me, I work so hard to tone her down. Yes, there's a part of me I bring in, but I have to glue my ass down to the chair. I have to get rid of me to make her. Lorraine Bracco, thanks so much for talking with us. Oh, you're sweet, Terry. I hope you had fun. Lorraine Bracco, speaking with Terry Gross in 2006. Coming up, we hear from Michael Imperioli,

who played Tony Soprano's impulsive nephew, Christopher. This is Fresh Air. We all hear things differently, and that can be tough when there's so much noise. This election year, we're a space to speak up and to listen. Listen to 1A for the latest on election 2024, only from NPR. Listening to the news can feel like a journey. But the 1A podcast guides you beyond the headlines and cuts through the noise.

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Lotus, playing a Hollywood producer with a sex addiction. Even in the premiere episode of The Sopranos, Christopher was too cocky and sassy, even with his powerful uncle Tony. In this scene, Tony, played by James Gandolfini, sees Christopher seated by himself on the porch at a family barbecue, brooding. When Tony approaches him, Christopher starts complaining, and Tony, who's recently started therapy, accepts the attitude at first. But therapy goes only so far. And when Christopher keeps pushing, Tony grabs him by the collar, lifts him out of his chair, and talks to him literally nose-to-nose.

What's wrong with you? You know, a simple way to go, Chris, on the Triborough Towers contract would have been nice. You're right. You're right. You're right. I have no defense. That's how I was parented. Never supported. Never complimented.

You know, my cousin Gregory's girlfriend is what they call a development girl out in Hollywood, right? She said I could sell my life story, make f***ing millions. I didn't do that. I stuck it out with you. F***ing kill you. What are you going to do,

go Henry Hill on me now? How many mobsters are selling screenplays and screwing everything up? She said I could maybe even play myself. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Forget Hollywood screenplays. Forget those distractions. Huh?

What do you think, I have an office? Terry Gross spoke with Michael Imperioli in 2000 and asked him to describe his character in The Sopranos. I'm kind of a younger, more hot-headed, impulsive young mobster who wants to be made into the mafia, which means officially become a member and go through the oath and ritual, which assures you a lifetime place in that family. And often my attempts to do that kind of backfire and cause me to get into more trouble.

Um, that's, but he's a hard worker and I think he has a good heart. When you started working on The Sopranos, was most of your knowledge about the mob from movies and TV shows? Well, yeah, I mean, I had done a couple of roles, and for those roles I did a lot of research. So I guess just the life and the kind of characterizations and the type of people was something that I was familiar with from growing up. What kind of neighborhood did you grow up in? I grew up in a mostly Italian neighborhood in Mount Vernon,

which is right on the border of the Bronx in New York. Were there guys who were rumored to be in the mafia or guys who you knew for sure were? There were guys who were connected to them, but not guys who I would say were like were made guys who were part of the family that lived in my immediate neighborhood. And what was your attitude toward them? Were there people you looked up to or people you wanted to stay away from? Well, you know, when we were kids growing up, the Godfather was like hero. You know, that was hero worship to us.

The Godfather kind of made us proud to be Italian because, I mean, we didn't look at them, those characters, as just violent, you know, criminals. We looked at them with appreciation because of their sense of being empowered in American society and being able to kind of take the law into their own hands. And we also were attracted to these bonds of loyalty and blood, you know, blood family, that version of blood, and tradition.

Now, you, before The Sopranos, you had a small part in Goodfellas, one of Martin Scorsese's movies, about the mob, about people at the lower echelon. Describe your part in Goodfellas. I played a kid who worked in the social club where these wise guys hung out, and specifically you see me serving drinks at a card game. I may go buy them a sandwich if they wanted it or make them a sandwich for the card game or kind of like a gopher of sorts. That was my character. His name was Spider.

And you got shot. Yeah, well, that was based on a true story, apparently, from what I understand, that there was a character who was this kid, and one of the guys kind of was getting a little hot under the collar and was fooling around and wanted me to, like in an old Western, you know, move a little quicker. So he was shooting the ground, he wound up shooting me in the foot.

And then in the next scene, he's kind of bothering me and saying, come on, you know, kind of doing the same thing, and I have this huge bandage on my foot. And I get upset and kind of tell him to go, you know, blah, blah, blah. And he gets really upset and winds up killing me. But it's kind of, it happens right in the middle of the movie and it's, I think, there was no reason really for me to, my character to die. And it kind of really showed, that was Joe Pesci

who shot my character in the movie. And it was a point in the movie where it really kind of really showed, that was Joe Pesci who shot my character in the movie, and it was a point in the movie where it really kind of shows he's taken a turn into, like, I guess depravity, where he's really, it's not about business anymore, it's really he's just kind of becoming psychotic, where he's just killing whoever he wants to for whatever reason. Let's hear an excerpt of that scene. Even though you guys got you could dance, huh? Give us a couple of

steps here, Spider. Tell it to what you're looking for, sympathy. Is that it, sweetie? Why don't you go f*** yourself, Tommy? Oh! Oh! That is it! I couldn't believe what I just heard.

Hey, Spider, here. This is for you. Atta boy. I got respect for this. He's got a lot of f-Man, this is for you. Atta boy. I got respect for this. He's got a lot of balls. Good for you. Don't take no shit off nobody. He shoots him in the foot. He tells him to go fuck himself.

You're going to let him get away with that? You're going to let the punk get away with that? What's the matter? What's the world coming to? What the fuck is the world coming to? How do you like that? When the Joe Pesci character is really going over the edge as he's shooting at you, did you feel that Joe Pesci was really doing something transformational in himself in that scene? Oh, no. I mean, I was, I mean, you get into it and you're doing your thing.

I mean, I think I was too involved in my thing to be taken out of it and think, wow, he's really going somewhere else. I mean, we were into our own parts and playing it to the hilt. Although I did get hurt in the scene when they killed me. In the first take, when I'm getting shot, I hit the ground and I had an actual glass in my hand which shattered, and I sliced two of my fingers open. So I got rushed to a hospital out in Queens, but I had these huge bullet holes and blood all over my chest.

And as they rushed me to the hospital, as I went into the hospital, they rushed at me and put me on a stretcher and i'm trying to explain to them that it was my hand and they just thought i was delirious and wouldn't listen to anything i was saying and thought you know they were gonna have to do some kind of i don't know trauma surgery or whatever the hell they were gonna have to do uh and then they finally understood and saw all the rigging for the blood packs and stuff like that, and everybody kind of had a laugh, and it was very funny. Sounds to me like a very effective way to get by the triage nurse.

It was exactly that. But once they found out that it was just my fingers, they made me wait a long time. Michael Imperioli, speaking with Terry Gross in 2000. We have extended interviews with today's guests and with other cast members on our site, freshairarchive.org. The new documentary, Wise Guy, David Chase and the Sopranos, premieres Saturday on HBO.

Coming up, Justin Chang reviews Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. This is Fresh Air. This message comes from Wondery. Find out how the NYPD transformed into one of the world's most powerful police forces. From Wondery and Crooked Media with Push Black, this is Empire City. Follow Empire City on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You care about what's happening in the world. Let State of the World from NPR keep you informed.

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Join the NPR Politics Podcast every single afternoon to understand the world through political eyes. More than 30 years after his classic supernatural comedy Beetlejuice, Tim Burton is back with a sequel called Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Michael Keaton again stars as the ghoulish green-haired prankster of the title, and Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara reprise their roles also. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opens in theaters this week, and our film critic Justin Chang has this review. The impish demon known as Beetlejuice has been dead for centuries, but he's enjoyed a pretty long life in popular culture. Tim Burton's hit film spawned a trippy animated TV series, which I happily devoured as a kid in the late 80s, and more recently, a Beetlejuice stage musical that's now touring the U.S.

Even so, I wasn't hankering for a sequel to the Burton movie, which might have turned out to be just another fan-servicing, nostalgia-milking cash grab. Fortunately, there isn't a whiff of cynicism to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Burton shows real affection for the first film's characters, and genuine curiosity about how they're doing three decades or so later. Winona Ryder is back as Lydia Dietz, who escaped Beetlejuice's clutches as a teenager. Now she's a paranormal expert with her own talk show. Lydia has long since buried the hatchet with her artist stepmother Delia, the sublime Catherine O'Hara. But she's having a tougher time with her own teenage daughter, Astrid.

That's Jenna Ortega from the show Wednesday, whose creators, Alfred Goff and Miles Miller, wrote this movie. When Lydia's father dies suddenly, the family reunites at their old Connecticut home for the funeral. It's here that Lydia accidentally winds up summoning Beetlejuice, thanks in part to her sleaze of a fiancé, played by Justin Theroux. So you're saying that someone called Beetlejuice... Don't say his name. If you say his name three times, he will appear. I know this is a big step for you, but in the words of Dr. Glickman, I'm going to give you the push you need. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. With a sudden whoosh, Beetlejuice is back, played by Michael Keaton with the same

messy green hair, rotting teeth, and mischievous streak as before. First of all, I want you two kids to know this is a safe space, okay? Feel free to express yourself. Don't be afraid. I sense there's an enabler here, but we'll get to that. You're a figment of my imagination. Really? Is this a figment of your imagination? Lydia winds up joining forces with Beetlejuice, begging him to help her after Astrid falls into a trap and gets sucked into the underworld. But Beetlejuice has worries of his own. Centuries ago, when he was still alive, he married a woman named Dolores,

played by a witchy Monica Bellucci. Things didn't end well, and now Dolores is back and stalking him. It's a silly twist, and a fairly inconsequential part of the breezy anything-goes plot, but that breeziness is part of the movie's charm. Like its predecessor, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is basically a supernatural screwball rom-com, in which marriage is never a matter of till death do us part. The movie is refreshingly unsentimental about love, whether it's Astrid getting hoodwinked by a teenage crush, or Lydia being courted by not one, but two unsavory suitors. Beetlejuice is less of a villain this time around, though as played by a fast-talking, shapeshifting Keaton, he's still a pain in the neck. He hasn't

really changed much in 30-odd years. In the afterlife, that's a drop in the bucket. But the living characters have changed in interesting ways. Delia, no longer just a sculptor but a multimedia artist, is mellower than before, though O'Hara gives her a dash of dottiness, perhaps channeling her Moira Rose from Schitt's Creek. Lydia, played with such moody self-possession by Ryder in the first film, is now a bundle of nerves, determined to save her daughter and their relationship at any cost. At a certain point, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice becomes a kind of hellish door-slamming farce, with multiple characters hurtling through portals between the realms of the living and the dead. But while the movie can be distractingly busy, it never feels frenetic or exhausting.

The underworld production design is ravishingly grim, and some of the sight gags, like when a dismembered corpse reassembles itself using a staple gun, are as exquisite as they are grisly. And for all the state-of-the-art technique on display, the movie retains a handcrafted look that feels rooted in the original. The result may not reach the first movie's most memorable moment. It was enough to make me imagine the late, great Belafonte himself, hanging out with the various misshapen denizens of this fantasy afterlife, and having, to his surprise as well as mine, a remarkably good time. Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. On Monday's show, stand-up comedian and late-night talk show host Taylor Tomlinson. She hosts CBS's After Midnight, which bills itself as the smartest show about the dumbest things on the internet. She talks about hosting a late-night talk show, finding humor in her dating life,

and her diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I hope you can join us. Day-o, me say day-o. Daylight come and me want to go Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld, and Deanna Martinez. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli. Work all night on a drink of rum For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli. The ThruLine Podcast is asking big questions about our democracy and going back in time to answer them. Listen now to the ThruLine Podcast from NPR.

You care about what's happening in the world. Let State of the World from NPR keep you informed. Each day we transport you to a different point on the, and introduce you to the people living world events. We don't just tell you world news, we take you there. And you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR. Vital international stories every day.