A very famous actor could have replaced Steve Carell in his absence on The Office!
If you don’t know, Steve left the show, and his iconic role of Michael Scott, with a few seasons left in the hit NBC sitcom. At the time, James Spader ended up landing the role.
Now, BJ Novak, who played Ryan on the series, explained who they wanted.
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Michael Imperioli is honoring James Gandolfini on what what would have been his 60th birthday.
On Saturday (September 18), the 55-year-old actor shared a touching tribute to his The Sopranos co-star on his birthday.
Click inside to read his message…More Here! »
Michael Gandolfini is opening up about his role in The Many Saints of Newark, where he portrays a younger version of his late dad, James Gandolfini‘s, Sopranos role.
Talking with Empire, the 22-year-old actor admitted it was a tough decision for him to step into the part.
Click inside to see what Michael shared…More Here! »
James Gandolfini was so close to signing on to star in The Office, after Steve Carell left the show.
The late actor’s Sopranos co-stars Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa opened up about the opportunity that James had to star in a new role as the Dunder Mifflin boss in the series, and why he passed on it.
Click inside to see what they shared…More Here! »
James Gandolfini once threatened to “beat the f*ck” out of Harvey Weinstein.
His Sopranos co-stars Steve Schirripa and Michael Imperioli were guests on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience where they told the story.
Weinstein wanted James to appear on David Letterman‘s talk show to promote 2012’s excellent Killing Them Softly.
The actors recalled, “He said, ‘Harvey Weinstein keeps calling, he wants me to do Letterman and I said no.’ And he got f*cking nasty with Jim. And Jim said, ‘I will beat the f*ck out of Harvey Weinstein! He f*cking calls me again, I will beat the f*ck out of him! For the money he paid me, I’m not f*cking doing it!’ Swear to God. And this is before all the Harvey Weinstein sh*t when he was still king sh*t.”
James passed away in 2013 at the young age of 51 from a heart attack.
The series finale of the iconic HBO series The Sopranos ended abruptly with the screen going to black while Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) sat in a diner with his family.
Series creator David Chase has always been tight-lipped about what actually happened, but in the 2019 book “The Soprano Sessions,” he did say that the scene was meant to imply Tony “could have been whacked in the diner.”
Now, a leaked interview that David did with the book’s co-authors seemingly reveals what actually happened to Tony… and it was all accidentally revealed.
“When you said there was an end point, you don’t mean Tony at Holsten’s [diner], you just meant, ‘I think I have two more years’ worth of stories left in me,’” co-author Alan Sepinwall asked David, according to The Independent.
“Yes, I think I had that death scene around two years before the end,” David replied. “Tony was going to get called to a meeting with Johnny Sack in Manhattan, and he was going to go back through the Lincoln Tunnel for this meeting, and it was going to go black there and you never saw him again as he was heading back, the theory being that something bad happens to him at the meeting. But we didn’t do that.”
Co-author Matt Zoller Seitz then said, “You realize, of course, that you just referred to that as a death scene.”
David reportedly then took a long pause before saying, “F–k you guys.”
So there you have it! Tony Soprano was seemingly killed off in that final scene.
Michael Gandolfini is featured in Esquire‘s September 2019 issue, out now.
Here’s what the 19-year-old actor had to say…
On his father James Gandolfini not wanting Michael to become an actor: “As I got older, he wanted me to play sports. I felt that burden. I wanted to make him proud. And he said, ‘Don’t be an actor; be a director. They have the power.’”
On getting the call to audition for the Sopranos prequel, The Many Saints of Newark: “The funny thing is, before the audition, I had never watched a minute of The Sopranos. I was just a kid when he was making it. I would go to the set and ask him what it was about, and he’d say, ‘Oh, it’s about this guy who’s in the mob and kind of goes to therapy.’ The hardest part of this whole process was watching the show for the first time. It was an intense process. Because, as an actor, I had to watch this guy who created the role, to look for mannerisms, voice, all those things I would have to echo. But then I’d also be seeing my father. I think what made it so hard was I had to do it alone. I was just sitting alone in my dark apartment, watching my dad all the time.”
On the two moments from The Sopranos that resonate with him: “There’s a scene where Meadow comes home late at night, and he’s sitting with a drink, and he’s like, ‘You know I love you, right?’ That hit hard. The other one that crushed me was when he yells at A.J., and he gets a pizza to apologize, and he sits by his son’s bed and says, ‘I couldn’t ask for a better son.’ I just knew he was talking to me in that scene.”
On taking acting classes in order to help him heal: “From the first day, I fell in love with it. It actually started my grieving process with my dad.”
For more from Michael, head to Esquire.com.
