The Sopranos — widely regarded as the greatest television series of all time — is credited with kickstarting the Second Golden Age of Television and launching the anti-hero wave. During its run, the show won a whopping 21 Primetime Emmy Awards, and five Golden Globe Awards, among numerous others. Today, it keeps garnering new fans, while its old fans remain very active, dissecting specific plots and coming up with fresh theories on social media. Everything about the HBO production is arguably perfect, but what was the process of making it like?
Through interviews with David Chase and a few other cast members, plenty of never-heard-before information is provided. Chase, who has been mysterious and elusive for most of his career, is surprisingly generous with the details here, making this the most must-see doc for fans of the show. Watching this wonderful behind-the-scenes story finally brought to the screen, one has to wonder why it took forever. Let’s hope no one was wearing a wire.
Producers, Cast Members, and Writers Get Interrogated
Should we get a new scripted show about the making of The Sopranos? The docuseries will definitely make fans wish for such a development. After all, it happened with The Godfather. Much of the speaking comes from David Chase himself, who gleefully jaws about his triumphs and challenges with an easygoing and benign jocularity. He reveals that his initial plan was to make a movie about his real-life overbearing mother, but ideas came flowing, leading to the decision to make a TV show. His mother would then serve as inspiration for Livia Soprano’s mannerisms. Even better, everyone in the writers’ room had grown up with a tough mother, so plenty of ideas were contributed.
Finding a home for the mob series wasn’t easy either. CBS rejected the series after learning that Tony would take Prozac at some point, while HBO execs took several months to decide whether they wanted to do it or not.
Speaking of homes, Martin Scorsese hated the show, despite having made some of the greatest gangster movies, because these modern goodfellas lived in nice New Jersey houses surrounded by trees. As someone who grew up in the harsh urban jungle of New York, he just couldn’t relate to that. Fans might also feel like putting a hit on David Chase’s agent after the revelation that he was urging the showrunner to leave and pursue a Hollywood career after Season 2. The series would definitely not have been the same if that had happened. Thankfully, Chase loved the show as much as Johnny Sack loved Ginny.
It is truly euphoric to sit down with Chase and listen to him talk off the cuff (perhaps the only way he’d ever have agreed to talk) about the journey. He conveys confidence in his modus operandi without ever appearing arrogant. And his anecdotes about the television industry’s practices are civil rather than catty — yet very revealing.
The Sopranos also owes its extraordinary power to the super-charged, multiple-Emmy-nominated performance by James Gandolfini, and the doc dishes out a lot about him. Quite the complicated person on set, he would bang his head on walls and tease castmate Lorraine Bracco, just the way Tony did to Dr, Melfi. Bracco describes him as a likable lunatic. Uncle Junior would have told him to take it easy because “we are not making a western here.”
Gandolfini also had a serious drug and alcohol problem. Former HBO CEO Chris Albrecht even tried to organize an intervention, the same way Christopher’s fellow mobsters do it on the show.
“We did an intervention with him at my apartment in New York. That was to try to get him to go to a facility for rehab. We’d had a lot of friction by that point, and the ruse was that I was inviting Jimmy over so we could talk things through and kind of clear the air. He walked in, and he saw everybody sitting there, and he went, ‘Aw, f** this.’ And he walked out. Everybody went, ‘Jimmy, Jimmy!’ And he turned to me and he went, ‘Fire me,’ and he left.”
Thankfully, this was Gandolfini. Always the strong and not-so-silent type, so he powered through to the finale.
The Production Is Very Sopranos-Like
For a docuseries, Wiseguy is quite creatively done. It even begins with the usual opening credits sequence of The Sopranos, except David Chase is with Tony in the car this time as he drives through the streets of New Jersey to his home. As the iconic “Woke Up This Morning (Chosen One Mix)” theme song by Alabama 3 plays, Chase keeps looking sideways at Tony, perhaps afraid that the mob boss might be leading him to his whacking point.
Even wilder, the ending of the docuseries cuts to black, just as Chase is about to clear the never-ending debate on whether Tony died in the finale or not. And, in the scenes with the talking heads, the inventive use of light and shade, with regular use of tilted camera shots, creates the illusion of a seedy New Jersey underworld.
Beyond that, Chase’s interview happens inside a room resembling Dr. Melfi’s office. Like Tony, he positions himself as someone willing to let everything out of his chest, and on he goes. Instead of Melfi (Bracco), he talks to Gibney, unapologetically revealing intimate details about his dictatorial handling of the scripts. Occasionally, Gibney plucks footage from the show and uses it to illustrate a point that the series creator is making.
Most notably, Chase steps into the role of an actor in this instance. Seated in the therapist’s chair, he embodies all the right facial cues, convincingly portraying Tony Soprano in an alternate universe. His unexpectedly brilliant performance makes the transitions between him and the real mob boss nearly seamless.
Without revealing too much about this intriguing new project, fans are encouraged to dive into the docuseries, as this article merely offers a small taste of the rich content it delivers. There’s a wealth of fascinating insights from cast members like Steven Van Zandt, Drea de Matteo, Michael Imperioli, and Edie Falco, making the behind-the-scenes stories as compelling as the fiction itself. While the docuseries could have been longer, it still hits the mark. It may not be a Capone-style feast, but it’s a satisfying and addictive dish, lovingly crafted—whether it’s from Artie Bucco’s Nuovo Vesuvio or Satriale’s Pork Store.
