“He became a household name, and it affected him,” says Steve Schirripa, aka the show’s loyal, lasagne-loving foot soldier Bobby Baccalieri.
The Sopranos was a juggernaut about a crime family in crisis, its star permanently enshrined in pop culture lore.
Of course, Gandolfini died unaware that The Sopranos would soon blow up again.
The week I speak to Imperioli, an extract from a forthcoming oral history of HBO appears online, one that doesn’t paint the easiest portrait of Gandolfini.