I just watched The Sopranos for the very first time, every episode. I became obsessed with the secondary characters...

Hesh Rabkin.

Tony B.

Rosalie Aprile

Patsy Parisi.

Dr. Kupferburg.

Annabella Sciorra was excellent as Gloria Trillo. I wish she had been in more episodes.

I never see Corky Caporale mentioned and he was hot. Apparently the actor wrote and starred in a Rudolph Valentino biopic, but I've never been able to find it.

Ginny Sac. The fucks wrong with you Datalounge? She was an icon!

Svetlana Kirilenko.

And Ginny was already named along with Johnny.

I've been hot for her [italic]forever[/italic], R6 -- but she doesn't look as good now.

We're all getting old, I guess.

Svetlana Kirilenko was bloody brilliant and such a well-written character.

She appears on the Talking Sopranos podcast and I believe she said that this was her very first audition ever! She has this insane authority which was fun to watch. Her refusal to return Livia's album collection after her death lead to one of the craziest non-fatal confrontations of the series!

Corky Caporale aka Edoardo Ballerini is one of the most sought after A-list audiobook narrators of the last fifteen years. He is in great demand and highly paid for his narration. His character is somewhat under-utilized so he was hard to get a handle on.

My favorite was Mabel the Duck. She was important in early episodes but left the show after creative differences with David Chase.

One of the hallmarks of a really good show is that the minor supporting characters are interesting people in their own right.

There was superb casting through the whole run of the series.

The best casting in a drama ever. Every single actor was seemingly born for their role. Some were so good that we still can’t imagine them as anything else.

Charmaine Bucco. One of the few people who kept from compromising themselves.

Charmaine Bucco was not wrong...about anything.

It didn't make her a lot of fun, but she was still not wrong.

Aida Turturro guest starred on Law & Order a number of times.

Her cousin John was great in Severance.

I envy you, OP, watching it for the first time!

Patsy Parisi. I believe he was behind killing Tony because he whacked his twin brother. When I watched the series again I kept my eye on Patsy. He was always around and listening. He knew everything and he fucking hated Tony. Him threatening Gina in the Mercedes is all-time greatness. Dan Grimaldi has a PhD in mathematics and is now teaching at a college in Brooklyn. Cool beans.

Carmela's therapist, who gave it to her straight.

Patsy Parisi hated Tony?

Hmmmm. I thought he was very into his son Patrick dating Meadow in season six and I thought he was really wanting to get close to Tony?

Still, it's a good character throughout. Dan Grimaldi did a great job throughout. I wish he had more to do.

Good one, R21! Don't forget about Meadow's therapist:

Furio

R22 Patsy went to Tony’s house drunk and was going to shoot Tony and Gigi for killing his twin brother. He couldn’t do it so he pissed in Tony’s pool instead. And go back to that uncomfortable dinner at Tony’s with Patsy and his wife. Watch Patsy’s expression when Tony hands him a drink.

Feech LaManna.

Feech LaManna!

One of the best character names ever on television!

Eugene Pontecorvo was a cool character, and his death was very troubling.

He was given a final episode where the character really has an arc and we see the desperation of some of the made men, trapped in this lifestyle.

R28 Eugene was forced to whack a guy in a diner while wearing his Members Only Jacket. Tony reneged on the agreement to let him move to Ft Myers so Eugene killed himself, which adds to the backstory of Tony’s murder. Eugene was part of Patsy’s crew at the Esplanade construction site.

[Quote] which adds to the backstory of Tony’s murder.

Tony wasn’t murdered.

^^^

This troll at r29 keeps mentioning “Tony’s murder” as if it’s a fact because he’s trying to provoke someone into disagreeing with him. So fine.

R30 R31 So disagree. It’s a fun part of the discussion of how the show ended.

Anyone but the Bevalaqua kid

On the Talking Sopranos podcast, Sciorra revealed that David Chase called her about coming back as Gloria in a recurring role, but she had taken another job and the scheduling wouldn’t work. They talked about how her character would kill herself.

Sciorra is absolutely amazing in the role and a big part of why season 3 of the show is so good.

OP I'm glad you watched the series. It's as good as it gets on tv, better than a lot of movies. Gandolfini was born to play that role. Fate, I tell you!

Ginny Sac was a soldier for her family. Poor Ginny, she had a lot of love to give.

I always loved Tim Daly as Christopher’s AA pal - the Hollywood write pal who was obsessed with Dick Wolf. His death is one of the creepiest on the show. …… And Polly Bergen as Fran Feldtein - Tony’s dad’s classy side piece. ….z Ah - I LOVE Tbe Sopranos. James Gandolfini is just Magic.

Our dear Adriana in distress:

The Sopranos rewards multiple viewing. During its original run there were often long time lapses between seasons, mostly because of Gandolfini’s film schedule or personal issues. It was easy to lose plot threads and character arcs, some of which might not have seemed all that important at the time but that jump out at you during a serious rewatch where you go directly to one season after another. I think David Chase is a serious artist.

Johnny Cakes

Is this on HBO? It’s 100 degrees- I’d like to nestle in with the AC in and enjoy it!

Yes, all of The Sopranos is available to stream via HBO.

John Costelloe the actor who played sexy Johnny Cakes, a former FDNY firefighter, committed suicide not long after the show ended.

Linda Lavin as Meadow's kooky therapist was a blast

I rewatched it a couple of yrs ago.....I couldn’t get past the outdate kitchen

R45. You were a c-section birth weren’t you? 😁

Ginni Sack was da bomb. She could be a DLer.

I liked their 1990s kitchen and the house in general, r45. It's like Carmela bought the trendiest furniture and fixtures over the course of one week in 1994 when they finally had money. There's nothing old or inherited in that home. Just slightly out of date flashy crap.

The actress who played Ginni Sack was a paralegal who showed up at a casting cattle call.

She wasn't even going to audition. Just be background at most. She was with a friend

Furio excited - “We go to Color Tile!” ……. Remember in Italy when that young boy got beaten in the street and both Tony and Paulie got stressed out - “ He’s just a kid!” ……. AJ getting his eyebrows shaved off and Tony wanting to know if it was a weird sex thing. ……. The super uncomfortable storyline about his high school buddy with the sporting goods store who gambled and got into debt with Tony.

I always thought it was the funniest thing when Carmela had a truck from Roche Bobois pull up to their house, since NOTHING in there looked like anything Roche Bobois would stock.

R48, ""I don't have antiques, my house is traditional." -Carmela Soprano

Agent Harris became one of my favorite supporting characters after the scene where Agent Cubitoso plays the tape of Livia telling Junior that Tony is seeing a psychiatrist and a bunch of his guys' mothers live at Green Grove, so they visit regularly. Cubisoto is gloating while Harris stays silent with an almost downcast look on his face. Harris and Tony had an interesting relationship.

[quote]Rosalie Aprile

Definitely.

[quote]Carmela's therapist

I was going to say Dr. Krakower, R21. He only made one appearance, but he made his mark.

Nearly six seasons after one of the scariest non-lethal beatdowns in the series (by Richie Aprile),

Beansie Gaeta is seen in Florida STILL in a wheelchair!

Ouch!

Might be a bit out there, but were we to understand that in Season 6 Agent Harris was dying?

His entire demeanor never recovered from his reported trip to Asia and his relationship with Tony was completely unorthodox. He never seemed well, and other than having some sort of fatal illness, I'm not sure why they kept harping on his overall lack of vigor?

Melfi's real life sister played Silvio's wife and she was distractingly bad

Vito's wife, not Silvio's. Steve van Zandt's wife Maureen played Gabriella Dante.

Wrong.

Melfi's (Lorraine Bracco) real life sister is Elizabeth Bracco who played Marie Spatafore, the wife of Vito Spatafore. I thought she did a fine job.

Silvio's wife Gabriella Dante was played by his real life Maureen Van Zandt. She wasn't ever given much to do except for about two episodes, yet she appears in many.

I wish I could have some cake and coffee with Ginny Sac right now.

Patsy Parisi’s wife was played by Donna Pescow of Saturday Night Fever fame.

oh, and Patti D'Arbanville as Lady Shylock! She meets a humiliating end, as does her boytoy. I thought she was great in that role!

[quote]R43 John Costelloe the actor who played sexy Johnny Cakes, a former FDNY firefighter, committed suicide not long after the show ended.

What is so strange about his suicide is he was appearing in an Off Broadway show (“Gang of Seven”) when he did that. Actors almost all have a strong “The Show Must Go On” ideal… it’s almost sacred.

I wonder why he didn’t wait until the run of the play was over (which might have been a matter of weeks) rather than throw the whole production in disarray.

Because he knew all about run of the play contracts!

Haha.

I know that suicidal depression can wipe out all reason, but still, most people don’t kill themselves with (say) their kids in the house. There’s usually some planning involved, isn’t there?

It’s just inconceivable to me that an actor would sabotage a production that’s up and running by killing themselves! Unless they knew they had a terrific understudy.

It just isn’t done!

We just lost Hesh. RIP Jerry. We’re lucky to have had him for as long as we did.

I just watched the CHRISTOPHER episode for the first time since it aired.

It’s not nearly as bad as people make out. I thought it was great.

I hated Steve van Zandt and thought he over acted every word he spoke

I was much the same R68 but I forever love him in the intervention scene. So funny. “I said my piece, Chrissy!”

Sydney Pollack was scary as the murderous doctor in prison who fucked with Johnny Sac's cancer timeline.

What was scary about him?

Joseph R. Gannascoli, the actor who played the doomed, closeted Vito Spatafore was one of the only still-living actors from the show never featured on the Talking Sopranos podcast. Lots of actors in smaller, less memorable roles were interviewed there making his absence noticeable.

I read somewhere Steve Schirripa was told his character would have more heft in the last two seasons, but instead, a big chunk of time was devoted Vito's subplot and Schirripa was pissed. I think the two actors were probably a bit frosty after that.

Scorsese hated the Sopranos because it was suburban. He didn’t get it.

R69 the whole scene was hilarious..thanks for a good, much needed laugh

[quote]There was superb casting through the whole run of the series.

[quote]The best casting in a drama ever.

R14 /R15 Chrisopher Walken's wife was the casting director. She was brilliant.