DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm TV critic David Bianculli. Twenty-five 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 "Wise Guy: 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 "8 1/2" was the first lightning bolt, followed by films by Polanski, Godard 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 Fly 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WISE GUY: DAVID CHASE AND THE SOPRANOS")
DAVID CHASE: And I would leave now. But I see what you've done, all the 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALABAMA 3 SONG, "WOKE UP THIS MORNING")
BIANCULLI: 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 Steven 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WISE GUY: DAVID CHASE AND THE SOPRANOS")
STEVEN VAN ZANDT: 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.
ALEX GIBNEY: What was that first conversation like?
VAN ZANDT: Well, it was a little weird because he says, you know, what do you think? I said, well, I think it's a great script. What kind of music you thinking of? He says, no, no, no, we want you to be in it. I said, I'm not an actor. I mean, isn't that a kind of a prerequisite for this whole TV thing, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
VAN ZANDT: And he says, yes, you are an actor. You just don't know it yet.
BIANCULLI: 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 Marchand 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WISE GUY: DAVID CHASE AND THE SOPRANOS")
CHASE: I think what Jim didn't know or expect is just how difficult it is to be the lead of a series.
JAMES GANDOLFINI: 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 got to figure out some way to do this. I had no clue. I had to prepare for it.
BIANCULLI: 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WISE GUY: DAVID CHASE AND THE SOPRANOS")
CHASE: Theoretically, therapy is supposed to make you a better person.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) All right, let me hear it.
CHASE: Instead, it made him a better mobster.
BIANCULLI: 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WISE GUY: DAVID CHASE AND THE SOPRANOS")
CHASE: It was always 13 episodes, so I'd make 13 lines.
(SOUNDBITE OF PEN SCRATCHING)
CHASE: Then I'd start making lines, like that, that would say Tony - What does Tony do in Episode 1? What does Tony do in Episode 2? What happens? And that was containing a plot. Then I started adding Carmela. What's Carmela 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 1 - I know what it says up here, but what's this really going to be about?
BIANCULLI: 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 Chase 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 it's cut to black final image in a way that delighted me to no end, literally.
Coming up, we hear an excerpt of our interview with David Chase from 2000. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF R.L. BURNSIDE SONG, "IT'S BAD YOU KNOW")
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. 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 Schirripa.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE SOPRANOS")
STEVE SCHIRRIPA: (As Bobby Baccalieri) Mom really went downhill after the World Trade Center. You know, Quasimodo predicted all this.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Who did what?
SCHIRRIPA: (As Bobby Baccalieri) All these problems - the Middle East, the end of the world.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Nostradamus. Quasimodo's the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
SCHIRRIPA: (As Bobby Baccalieri) Oh, right, Notre Damus.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Nostradamus and Notre Dame. It's two different things completely.
SCHIRRIPA: (As Bobby Baccalieri) It's interesting, though, they'd be so similar; isn't it? And I always thought, OK, Hunchback of Notre Dame. You also got your quarterback and your halfback of Notre Dame.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) One's a f***ing cathedral.
SCHIRRIPA: (As Bobby Baccalieri) 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?
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) No.
BIANCULLI: Terry spoke with David Chase in 2000.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
TERRY GROSS: 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.
CHASE: I know people have said that, and I didn't realize that. I don't see it that way, so it's very difficult.
GROSS: You don't see it that way.
CHASE: I don't. The last show, we did a sudden U-turn, if that's what people are talking about. That last show...
GROSS: The last show of the second season.
CHASE: 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, OK, based on what we seem to remember about therapy or know about therapy, if you can press at all - and, of course, it takes much longer than this. And it's - you get to a point where you're, my parents did this. My parents did that. You're slamming your parents. You're - the shrink is saying, oh, those parents you had - what do you expect? You can't be any better than you are because of them.
And you go through that, and then you get to a point where it's, OK, so your parents were your parents. Now what are you going to do? You know, are you going to - as a shrink once said to me, what would you like to do? Should we have an auto-da-fe 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 to be - 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.
GROSS: 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, you know, the work that he's doing and in the crimes that he's committing. So here's Tony with Dr. Melfi.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE SOPRANOS")
LORRAINE BRACCO: (As Jennifer Melfi) Do you know why a shark keeps moving?
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) They got to keep moving, or they'll die. They can't breathe or something.
BRACCO: (As Jennifer Melfi) There's a psychological condition known as alexithymia common in certain personalities. The individual craves almost ceaseless action, which enables them to avoid acknowledging the abhorrent things they do.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Abhorrent? What certain personalities?
BRACCO: (As Jennifer Melfi) Antisocial personalities.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) 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?
BRACCO: (As Jennifer Melfi) 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.
GROSS: 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?
CHASE: Well, it was intended to be building toward some sort of conclusion or some kind of self-awareness on Tony's part that he - that it's no longer - you can no longer blame your parents, your mother. You cannot go through your life or go through therapy just leaning on that crutch all the time - that after a while, it's you. The problem is you. It's strange. As you were playing that scene, I became - 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 that underneath that, there's this just little, scared person who just hates himself.
GROSS: We...
CHASE: And I felt compassion for the guy.
GROSS: 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?
CHASE: Well...
GROSS: 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.
CHASE: 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. This is, you know - 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 the 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. And how it happened...
GROSS: There's something very average-guy-looking about him.
CHASE: Oh, it's more than that. I think - I don't think he is that average. I think there's a - I think he is a very, very sensitive, hypersensitive man, and I think he reflects his environment in a very, very rarified way. And he comes off as the regular Joe, you know, but that's - 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.
GROSS: Edie Falco plays the role of Carmela. What did you tell Edie Falco about the character of Carmela after you casted her?
CHASE: Nothing, absolutely nothing - just comes in, does her work.
GROSS: Was Carmela...
CHASE: No direction - honest to God, no direction, no nothing.
GROSS: When you...
CHASE: That's the case with most of these actors. There's very little directing going on.
GROSS: Well, here's a scene between Carmela and Tony from "The Sopranos."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE SOPRANOS")
EDIE FALCO: (As Carmela Soprano) I hope you apologized to him.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) For what?
FALCO: (As Carmela Soprano) Tony, you promised him you were going to be at his swim meet.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Oh, s***. I forgot.
FALCO: (As Carmela Soprano) How could you forget?
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Something I had to do.
FALCO: (As Carmela Soprano) Tony, he almost came in second. You should have seen his face when you weren't there.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Yeah, well, I saw his face the other day, when he had to go to the mall when I wanted to take him to the movies.
FALCO: (As Carmela Soprano) What are you, 6 years old?
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Hey. I said I'd try to be there.
FALCO: (As Carmela Soprano) What is with you, Tony? This whole week you're like an alien life form among us.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) There's nothing wrong.
FALCO: (As Carmela Soprano) Thank you for sharing.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) You know what? Leave me the f*** alone. I'm exhausted. I'll make it up to him, the swim meet.
FALCO: (As Carmela Soprano) So where were you? Did you go see Christopher at the hospital?
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Yeah, I went to see Christopher at the hospital.
FALCO: (As Carmela Soprano) Wherever you were, it couldn't have been more important than letting your son know that you care about him.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) No, only you care.
GROSS: My guest 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?
CHASE: Oh, of course, 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 that other people didn't.
The - 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 8 or 9, and they would play a movie all week long. And in it, there's the gangster Tom Powers. You know, it's the one where Cagney's finally, after this life of crime - and 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 he's - and the rival gang calls his mother's house and says, we're sending Tom home. And his brother runs up the stairs and says, Ma, Ma, they're bringing Tom home. And she starts - 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. He'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 these 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've ever seen. I was scared about this for a month. I could not get that out of my mind.
GROSS: What was it that was so scary?
CHASE: I don't know to this day. Just the idea - those people's expectations in the house - it's actually make 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'd wasted his life.
BIANCULLI: 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University. 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE SOPRANOS")
BRACCO: (As Jennifer Melfi) Anthony, I think your anger toward A.J. has been building for some time. We have to deal with this.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) All I know is it's a good thing my father's not alive 'cause let me tell you - he'd find this f***ing hilarious.
BRACCO: (As Jennifer Melfi) Find what hilarious?
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) The kind of son I produced.
BRACCO: (As Jennifer Melfi) You mean because Anthony doesn't conform to your father's idea of what a man should be?
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) His, mine or anybody's. Let me tell you - if Carmela let me kick A.J.'s ass like my father kicked my ass, he might have grown up with some b***s.
BRACCO: (As Jennifer Melfi) Like you.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Yeah, like me.
BRACCO: (As Jennifer Melfi) 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?
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) I couldn't even hit him if I wanted to. He's so f***ing little. It's Carmela's side of the family. They're small people. Her father - you could knock him over with a f***ing feather.
BRACCO: (As Jennifer Melfi) OK. 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: 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?
BRACCO: 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.
GROSS: 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?
BRACCO: Oh, yes, it did. And medication helped me.
GROSS: What did 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?
BRACCO: 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 crises 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.
GROSS: 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 know, 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?
BRACCO: Well, Marty had met me. He knew me. I had already worked a little bit, so I - 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.
GROSS: I want to play a scene from "Goodfellas," and this is a scene - you and Henry Hill have recently married, but you're living in - 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 place. So this is a...
BRACCO: OK.
GROSS: ...Scene with you and your mother.
BRACCO: And just - I know this has got nothing to do with nothing, but you realize Suzanne Shepherd, who plays my mother in "Goodfellas," plays - come on, Terry. Come on - it's a great trivia question.
GROSS: I don't know.
BRACCO: Plays Edie's mother in "Sopranos."
GROSS: No, really?
BRACCO: Same actress.
GROSS: I didn't realize that.
BRACCO: Ah, see?
GROSS: Oh, you got me. That's great.
BRACCO: All right, just a little trivia.
GROSS: Well, that's great. Well, let's hear the scene. And we can think about that...
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: ...As we listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GOODFELLAS")
SUZANNE SHEPHERD: (As Karen's Mother) He didn't call?
BRACCO: (As Karen Hill) He's with his friends.
SHEPHERD: (As Karen's Mother) What kind of a person doesn't call?
BRACCO: (As Karen Hill) Ma, he's a grown-up. He doesn't have to call every five minutes.
SHEPHERD: (As Karen's Mother) If he was such a grown-up, why doesn't he get you two an apartment?
BRACCO: (As Karen Hill) Oh, don't start. Mom, you're the one who wanted us here.
SHEPHERD: (As Karen's Mother) Listen, you're here a month, and sometimes, I know he doesn't come home at all. What kind of people are these?
BRACCO: (As Karen Hill) Ma, what do you want me to do?
SHEPHERD: (As Karen's Mother) 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.
BRACCO: (As Karen Hill) Stay out? Daddy never went out at all, Ma. Keep out of it. You don't know how I feel.
SHEPHERD: (As Karen's Mother) Feel? How do you feel now? You don't know where he is. You don't know who he's with.
BRACCO: (As Karen Hill) He's with his friends. Dad.
SHEPHERD: (As Karen's Mother) 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.
GROSS: That's my guest Lorraine Bracco with Suzanne Shepherd 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, like, nonsexual as possible in a therapy relationship like that?
BRACCO: OK, so I have a couple of things on the subject. Are you ready?
GROSS: Yes.
BRACCO: One, Terry...
GROSS: Yes.
BRACCO: It is a TV show.
(LAUGHTER)
BRACCO: And Mr. Gandolfini goes to our fantastic costume designer, Juliet, and begs her to shorten my skirts.
GROSS: (Laughter).
BRACCO: Just so you know - a little artistic license there. You know, if 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.
GROSS: (Laughter).
BRACCO: I have to get rid of me to make her.
GROSS: Lorraine Bracco, thanks so much for talking with us.
BRACCO: Oh, you're sweet, Terry. I hope you had fun.
BIANCULLI: 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF NILS LOFGREN SONG, "BLACK BOOKS")
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Michael Imperioli played Christopher Moltisanti, Tony Soprano's hot-headed nephew in "The Sopranos." More recently, he co-starred in the second season of HBO's "White 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE SOPRANOS")
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) What's wrong with you?
MICHAEL IMPERIOLI: (As Christopher Moltisanti) You know, a simple way to go, Chris, on the Triborough Towers contract would've been nice. That's it.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) You're right, you're right. I have no defense. That's how I was parented. Never supported. Never complimented.
IMPERIOLI: (As Christopher Moltisanti) 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's story, make [expletive] millions. I didn't do that. I stuck it out with you.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) I could [expletive] kill you. What are you going to do, go Henry Hill on me now? You know how many mobsters are selling screenplays and screwing everything up?
IMPERIOLI: (As Christopher Moltisanti) She said I could maybe even play myself.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Oh, yeah?
IMPERIOLI: (As Christopher Moltisanti) Yeah.
GANDOLFINI: (As Tony Soprano) Forget Hollywood screenplays. Forget those distractions. What - do you think I haven't had offers?
BIANCULLI: Terry Gross spoke with Michael Imperioli in 2000 and asked him to describe his character in "The Sopranos."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
IMPERIOLI: 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. But he's a hard worker, and I think he has a good heart.
GROSS: When you started working on the sopranos, was most of your knowledge about the mob from movies and TV shows?
IMPERIOLI: 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 is something that I was familiar with from growing up.
GROSS: What kind of neighborhood did you grow up in?
IMPERIOLI: I grew up in a mostly Italian neighborhood in Mount Vernon, which is right on the border of the Bronx in New York.
GROSS: Were there guys who were rumored to be in the Mafia or guys who you knew for sure were?
IMPERIOLI: There were guys who were connected to them, but not guys who I would say, like, were made guys, who were part of the family that lived in my immediate neighborhood. No.
GROSS: And what was your attitude toward them? Were they people you looked up to or people you wanted to stay away from?
IMPERIOLI: 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.
GROSS: 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."
IMPERIOLI: 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 to make them a sandwich for the card game or - kind of like a gopher of sorts. That's what - that was my character. His name was Spider.
GROSS: Then you get shot.
IMPERIOLI: 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 he's 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 shows he's taking 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.
GROSS: Let's hear an excerpt of that scene.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GOODFELLAS")
JOE PESCI: (As Tommy DeVito) Even though you got that, you could dance. Give us a little - give us a couple of f***ing steps here, Spider, you bulls****er, you. Tell the truth. You're looking for sympathy. Is that it, sweetie?
IMPERIOLI: (As Spider) Why don't you go f*** yourself, Tom?
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERT DE NIRO: (As Jimmy Conway) Did I hear right? I don't believe what I just heard. Hey, Spider - here. This is for you - 'at a boy. I got respect for this kid. He's got a lot of f***ing balls, actually. Good for you. Don't take no s*** off nobody. He shoots him in the foot. He tells him to go f*** himself.
(LAUGHTER)
DE NIRO: (As Jimmy Conway) Tommy, you going to let him get away with that? You going to let this punk get away with that? What's the matter? What's the world coming to?
(SOUNDBITE OF GUN FIRING)
PESCI: (As Tommy DeVito) That's what the f***ing world is coming to. How do you like that?
GROSS: 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?
IMPERIOLI: Oh, no. I mean, I was - I mean, you get into it, and, you know, you're doing your thing. I mean, I think I was too involved in my thing to, like, 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, you know, 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.
GROSS: (Laughter).
IMPERIOLI: And as they rushed me to the hospital and 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 it was delirious and wouldn't listen to anything I was saying and thought, you know, they were going to have to do some kind of - I don't know - trauma surgery or whatever the hell they were going to have to do. 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.
GROSS: Sounds to me like a very effective way to get by the triage nurse.
IMPERIOLI: It was exactly that. But once they found out that it was just my fingers, they made me wait a long time.
BIANCULLI: 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF DANNY ELFMAN'S "BEETLEJUICE - MAIN TITLES / END TITLES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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