The Many Saints of ‘Newark’ | The Sopranos Prequel

Michela De Rossi Lands Final Lead In ‘Sopranos’ Prequel ‘The Many Saints Of Newark’

The Sopranos prequel The Many Saints Of Newark has set its final major lead role. Michela De Rossi, the Italian-born actress who made her debut in Boys Cry, has been set to join Alessandro Nivola, Vera Farmiga, Ray Liotta, Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll, Billy Magnussen, John Magaro, Michael Gandolfini and the just-cast Leslie Odom Jr. in the ensemble drama for New Line. Production gets underway next week in New Jersey and New York.
 
Michael Gandolfini spotted in Brooklyn filming ‘Sopranos’ prequel

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That is pretty much how I pictured young Tony.
 
I'm excited to hear how he captures his father's voice.
 
still, think berthal is playing Paulie walnuts.

It's been now said (and new set photos basically confirm it) that's he's playing Tony's father. He would've been a lot of fun as Paulie though.
 
Alessandro Nivola teases 'Sopranos' prequel film: 'David Chase wrote me the role of a lifetime'

The Sopranos legacy will get a new chapter next year when creator David Chase’s prequel film The Many Saints of Newark arrives in theaters. And with a new chapter comes a new face in Alessandro Nivola, who takes on the lead role of Dickie Moltisanti, a crucial figure in the world of Sopranos despite dying before the series began. Like Tony Soprano was for the late James Gandolfini, Nivola declares this a life-changing character.

“David Chase wrote me the role of a lifetime,” the actor, who is currently starring in The Art of Self-Defense, tells EW. “Far and away, filming this movie was the most exciting thing in my career so far. It’s an incredibly nuanced, violent, funny, charming, scary, morally confused person, and it was an absolute joy to play.”

The film from Chase and Sopranos director Alan Taylor is set amid the riots of 1960s Newark, New Jersey, which broke out as a result of tensions flaring between the city’s black and Italian residents. Nivola’s Moltisanti serves as the central figure, and his ties to the show run deep as he’s the father of Christopher (Michael Imperioli), cousin of Carmela (Edie Falco), and mentor of Tony, who will be played in the film by Gandolfini’s son, Michael. The stacked Newark cast also includes Vera Farmiga, Jon Bernthal, Billy Magnussen, and Corey Stoll.

“I have really high hopes about the film,” adds Nivola. “What David did was to tell an origin story of Tony Soprano through a character that was dead before the series and that is such a surprising way of going about it. And the late ’60s mob movie is the stuff of dreams. Everyone was at the top of their game. The only infuriating thing is how long we have to wait.”
 
Yeah I am ready for this.
 
Michael Gandolfini on James Gandolfini and Playing Tony Soprano in 'The Many Saints of Newark'

It is, of course, his eyes that get you first, his eyes that give him away.

You walk into the restaurant, scan the room, and there he is, hunched over a table tucked close to the wall, catching your eyes with his. Eyes exactly like his father’s. He pops up from his seat, extends his hand, and gives a big smile—the same smile his father had but rarely flashed. “Hi, I’m Michael Gandolfini,” he says. He’s thinner than his father was, and full of boyish energy. But you notice other mannerisms—the way he runs his fingers through his hair, how he rubs his nose with the back of his hand. And all at once you realize why it was inevitable that David Chase would cast him, the twenty-year-old son of the man who played the adult Tony Soprano, James Gandolfini, as the teenage Tony in the feature-length Sopranos prequel, The Many Saints of Newark (2020).


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“He wanted me to play sports. I felt that burden. I wanted to make him proud."

Suit and turtleneck sweater by Dior Men; gold ring and gold-and-carbon ring by David Yurman.
Marco Grob

Stepping into your father’s shoes would be fraught for any of us. Your identity becomes forever entwined with his. Now imagine you are not just pursuing your father’s profession, seeking your own path, but you are also taking on the role he made iconic. So here you are, playing the younger version of a man your father brought to life, and yet your father, the man who created this role—as well as you, his son—is gone. Has been since you were fourteen years old. You were there when he died of a heart attack, in June 2013, while on a family vacation in Rome. He was just fifty-one.


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Michael, just shy of his fourth birthday, sits on James’s shoulders, in 2004.
“Yeah, it was a difficult decision,” Michael says when I ask him about assuming the role. He was born in 1999, the year The Sopranos debuted. He liked performing; as a kid, he saw Wicked and loved it. “I dressed up as the Scarecrow almost every night, and my dad would videotape me singing,” he says. But James discouraged his son from making it his career. “As I got older,” Michael says, “he wanted me to play sports. I felt that burden. I wanted to make him proud. And he said, ‘Don’t be an actor; be a director. They have the power.’ ”

It was his father’s death, however, that propelled Michael toward acting, after a friend suggested that acting classes might help him heal. Though he had second thoughts the night before he began, he says, “from the first day, I fell in love with it. It actually started my grieving process with my dad.” He gave up the football team for the drama club. He even starred as the title character in a local production of Shrek the Musical.

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"As an actor, I had to watch this guy who created the role, to look for mannerisms, voice, all those things I would have to echo. But then I’d also be seeing my father."

After high school, he enrolled at NYU, where he’s currently a sophomore. He got a manager and started to audition in New York. He landed the first role he tried out for: Joey Dwyer on HBO’s The Deuce,George Pelecanos and David Simon’s ode to the pornocopia of 1970s New York (returning for its third and final season on September 9). “When I got the role,” Michael says, “my manager joked, ‘You should quit acting now—you’re one-for-one.’ ”


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Then came the call from David Chase’s office. Chase was getting ready to make a movie about Tony Soprano’s early years.

“The funny thing is, before the audition, I had never watched a minute of The Sopranos. I was just a kid when he was making it. I would go to the set and ask him what it was about, and he’d say, ‘Oh, it’s about this guy who’s in the mob and kind of goes to therapy.’ The hardest part of this whole process was watching the show for the first time.” Michael pauses. “It was an intense process. Because, as an actor, I had to watch this guy who created the role, to look for mannerisms, voice, all those things I would have to echo. But then I’d also be seeing my father. I think what made it so hard was I had to do it alone. I was just sitting alone in my dark apartment, watching my dad all the time. I started having crazy dreams. I had one where I auditioned for David and I looked down at my hands, and they were my dad’s hands.”

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"When he yells at A. J., and he gets a pizza to apologize, and he sits by his son’s bed and says, ‘I couldn’t ask for a better son.’ I just knew he was talking to me in that scene.”

I tell him that his father, as Tony, brought about so many indelible moments. Are there any that resonate with him? He describes two. “There’s a scene where Meadow comes home late at night, and he’s sitting with a drink, and he’s like, ‘You know I love you, right?’ That hit hard,” Michael says. “The other one that crushed me was when he yells at A. J., and he gets a pizza to apologize, and he sits by his son’s bed and says, ‘I couldn’t ask for a better son.’ I just knew he was talking to me in that scene.”

I ask him if he has anything from his father that he holds dear, any object. He tells me that when he was young, his father gave him a plaque. “He was away a lot, filming. It was a rough time. A lot of craziness going on. I was eight or nine. The plaque says, to michael, the boy with the heart of a lion.”

Just then the waiter comes. We settle up. What happens next for this Gandolfini?

Smash cut to black.
 

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