Seldom do actors steal the spotlight quite like James Gandolfini did. The man’s presence was enough to attract all the eyes in the room. He wasn’t just an actor, he was a force of nature and on the unfortunate date of June 19, 2013, he left the world, leaving a dent James Gandolfini-shaped hole in Hollywood. While it has been over a decade since he passed, his fans have stayed loyal to him all these years, keeping his memory alive, one The Sopranos re-watch after the next.
When he was alive, James Gandolfini loved interacting with his fans, but if you believe he was a “gentle giant,” The Sopranos creator David Chase has some news for you.
James Gandolfini was a complex man
David Chase last spoke on the phone with James Gandolfini a month prior to his death, and while they lost touch with each other after the end of The Sopranos, they were reunited after working together in the 2012 film, Not Fade Away.
For Chase, Gandolfini was the definition of a brother. They would fight, disagree, wouldn’t always get along, but under all that, there was mutual love and understanding for each other. He would even go as far as to call him his “soulmate.“
In an interview with The Guardian, Chase was asked about how Gandolfini dealt with his fans fawning over him. He recalled the actor being utterly kind to his fans and expressed his disdain for the media who tried to portray him in a negative light.
He said,
He was very sweet to people on the street whenever I saw him. When I read otherwise in the press … I just think some people have no sense of boundaries and keep pushing. If someone keeps saying ‘Hey Tony, motherfucker!’ … what do you do? He was a sweet man, really.
However, this doesn’t mean that he was a gentle giant, as was the common misconception back in the day. Chase believes that the term doesn’t do justice to Gandolfini’s personality. He told The Guardian, “No. He wasn’t a gentle giant. That’s an easy statement. And doesn’t do justice to how complex he was.” So, what was it that made the actor so complex to decipher?
David Chase opens up about James Gandolfini’s complexity
Talking about his friend, colleague, and brother, Chase made it clear that he is no psychiatrist but could see that Gandolfini was a “tortured man.” Without bringing up his upbringing or background, Chase opened up about the negative tendencies in the actor, something which both of them shared.
Both Chase and Gandolfini were angry men who came together to create one of the most imperfectly perfect characters television has seen – Tony Soprano. A villain unlike any other, Tony’s name is still mentioned amongst the greatest characters of all time.
Rage played a huge role in their bond, and not how you would think it did. Chase said,
He was extremely tortured. I’m not his psychiatrist and it’s not for me to talk about his background or upbringing. It’s not my place to analyse Jimmy Gandolfini. But I did say we were brothers and what I meant by that was that we had things in common, like negative tendencies. He was a very angry guy and so was I.
It always seemed bizarre to me that we met under these circumstances and created this even angrier guy. We used to laugh about that a lot. We laughed a lot at rage. He would laugh at his own rage. He was delighted when he saw me rage, it was the funniest thing in the world to him.
Truly one of a kind.
And if not as a gentle giant, like Chase said he wasn’t, how would Galdofini have liked to be remembered as? An average guy. The Sopranos creator said, “I think, as kind of an average guy. He told me that. He said as much.“
Before passing away, Gandolfini had high aspirations about his career. Apart from acting, he wanted to direct and produce, and Chase is convinced that if time was on his side, he would’ve done it all.
The Sopranos is available to watch on Max.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
