James Gandolfini would say “I fucking suck” out loud on ‘The Sopranos’ set

James Gandolfini would often publicly doubt himself and proclaim “I fucking suck” on the set of The Sopranos, one of his co-stars has claimed.

READ MORE: ‘The Sopranos’ greatest moments – as chosen by ‘The Many Saints of Newark’ cast

Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who played Meadow, the daughter of Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano on the HBO show, said that she felt he was saying it primarily as a way to help his fellow actors.

“It had nothing to do with his confidence,” Sigler told the Inside of You podcast. “He would question himself. There would be moments where he’d be like, ‘I fucking suck,’ but I appreciated that because I’ve had those thoughts but I didn’t say them out loud because I don’t want anybody to know that I think I suck. He was confident enough to say it out loud.”

“Jim was the type of scene partner where it felt like he was there and his only intention was to make me as good as I could be,” she continued. “Every time I worked with him, I felt like his sole purpose was, ‘I’m going to help you give your best fucking take, Jamie.’”

The Sopranos ran for six seasons, clocking up 86 episodes between 1999 and 2007.

It is not the first time that one of Gandolfini’s co-stars has spoken about the actor’s generosity on set. Last year, Steven Van Zandt, who played Silvio Dante on the show, discussed how Gandolfini gave a $33,000 share of his pay rise to other members of the cast. “He had gotten a big raise and just divided it among the cast. He was one of a kind,” Van Zandt said.

Sigler, now 42, was a teenager when she began playing Meadow, and this week she has also speculated about the possibility of the cast coming together one more time to film a new episode.

“I wish we could just do one week of filming right now, because of my awareness of the world and what that [show] was and what we were a part of… I just wish I could experience it, like one episode, give me one episode right now,” she said. “Just drop me back in for a couple days.”

Last month, Sopranos actor Drea de Matteo, who played Adriana La Cerva, admitted that she only joined OnlyFans recently because her stance on the COVID-19 vaccine had cost her work and her agent had dropped her.

“My own industry thinks I’m, you know, a savage,” she said. “I know some people have said some nasty things about me having joined OnlyFans. But, you know, the way we see it in this house is mommy’s a warrior, not accepting defeat.”

Michael Imperioli, who played Adriana’s boyfriend Christopher Moltisanti, revealed in a recent interview that the scenes where his character had to be physically abusive to Adriana were the most challenging.

“The most brutal, difficult stuff for me is when Christopher had to be physically abusive with Adriana, for obvious reasons,” he said. “On a technical level, you’re trying to be really careful so you don’t hurt the person. But having to get to that point of violence towards a woman, you have to go to some nasty places to get there.

Gandolfini died on June 19, 2013, aged 51. A prequel film to The Sopranos, The Many Saints of Newark, was released in 2021.

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