>Little Steven Van Zandt was in the final 3 to portray Tony Soprano
>they liked him so much they just gave him the Silvio role
Does the show make it past the first season with no Gandolfini? They wanted Ray Liotta, but he told them TV is for dead careers. It's always been a big what if for me, if you could replace Gandolfini, and if the good writing would survive questionable casting decisions.
His wife has major cheating snowbunny/hotwife cuckoldress vibes.
kino
Yup. Best out of them all.
>character wore a wife the whole time
You think someone would have said something once
Wig, I mean.
He didn't "wear a wig" until the movie. In the show, I believe there's a scene where he's woken up in the middle of the night and the hair is on. You don't sleep in wigs.
Forget everything that happened in the movie, it's fan fiction nonsense.
one of the many reasons the movie was utter crap, it almost felt like a direct "frick you" to Stevie
The only good part of that mess was Vera Farmiga.
> Does the show make it past the first season with no Gandolfini?
Nope, definitely not.
Van Zandt is a bad actor with very little range.
Having him in the Melfi scenes would’ve been a disaster.
Imagine his mug in the pool trying to cry about ducks or some shit. It's a tough sell. Weirdly, if the show aired on FOX and leaned into the comedy and family stuff, maybe it would work. Those therapy scenes those. Silvio doing the mothers are school buses tear jerker shit, fuuuck.
>in the pool
Not with his wig on or little bandana.
I made it through exactly one episode of Lillehammer as an avid Sopranos fan
Same here. I want to give it a second chance sometime, watch it before the ending The Sopranos, as a very long fever dream. Surprised some autistic guy from Latvia hasn't made a fan cut of the best scenes.
I forgot about this show and never even attempted to watch it.
I haven never even seen a clip referenced on /tv or anywhere on YouTube.
same
Sometimes when I get banned I go to a text-to-speech AI generator of James Gandolfini's voice and I spend hours having him slander janny in different ways and talk about all the creative methods we're going to use to elaborately whack him
>Ray Liota
Did he get regretful and that’s why he took the role in the movie?
Van Zandt/Silvio is a literal clown, the idea of him having to play Tony is just laughable, sounds like a pitch for a bad modern SNL skit. Even as Silvio he should've been killed off during the off-beat weird Twin Peaks-coded Season 1, and completely forgotten after that when the show became grounded and realistic.
I don't know if I'd go there but Silvio killed off after a season or two and Joey Pants staying for another season or two would be an interesting trade. Ralph is so fricking funny on rewatches, show takes a slight dip when he's gone. I'm also 50/50 on Buscemi.
One of the major weaknesses in the Sopranos writing, which becomes very evident on rewatch, is that a lot of arcs for antagonists and supporting characters are conducted so fast they have almost no staying power, Tony Bs arc was the most egregious example. It's amazing Ralphie stayed for 2 seasons as it is, adding him to the cast must've brought a lot of viewers. Yet clown characters like Silvio and Vito that honestly just feel out of place in the show continue to persist. It's honestly weird
The Newark shitshow of a film did Silvio so dirty that it has made me question if he was always as cringe inducing as that SNL tier portrayal made him out to be.
It's weird because some wannabe massage therapist/ex-con Italian hood fits Buscemi on paper, but his face is so...I've seen it too much for it to blend with the cast. I think John Turturro would've been a better choice, if you wanted a famous face to blend in.
Buscemi and Loggia were too distracting for their roles IMO
>They wanted Ray Liotta, but he told them TV is for dead careers
And they still cast him for the movie, fricking idiots.
Ray was the moronic one for passing on an offer like that.
Liotta wouldn't be the right fit for Tony. Gandolfini was unironically born for the role.
100% agree with that.
Doubt they'd cast Bracco as the therapist either. I could see him bringing a different take to what Tony was, less personal maybe and more his overall role in the mob in what eventually is post 9/11 America.
Why is everyone now pretending that Van Zandt didn't do a fantastic job as Silvio?
>fantastic job
He's an overacting clown, a cartoon character basically. It was fine for the weird off-kilter vibes of Season 1, but beyond that his "physical" acting is honestly embarrassing. Which was obviously evident to the showrunners - because he's one of the main characters that the show inexplicably barely spends any time with, he always appears in very short scenes to move the plot along and act as a dialogue stand-in, and ultimately doesn't have an actual arc like everyone else in the main cast.
You don't need an arc to be a good character, Silvio was Tony's stoic and loyal right-hand and Van Zandt perfectly fit the role. The showrunners gave him enough depth too when Tony was in the hospital and you seebSilvio clearly struggling with all the responsabilities that his boss had.
It becomes more obvious in the 6th season, when Silvio has nothing to do except fix broken vases and clean shit in the background.
The only scene that he was remembered is Adriana execution
That one got me, because it was Sil. Can't think of many other comic reliefs that suddenly turn into cold blooded killers.
But they were smart enough to work with the limitations of the actors. Same with AJ once they realised he sucked as an adult actor, they gave him what he was capable of instead of pushing it.
Honestly I was expecting that every "comedic" character would have a moment like this since S1 when Tony kill that guy who was a rat with his bare hands and trying to lie to his daughter.
don't ruin sil for me anon what the frick
If Liotta does take the role, no way is he doing voice acting gigs. So no Vice City, or more accurately, a much different Tommy Vercetti. I wonder if they had a plan B if Ray told them to frick off that one time. It's weird how his instincts on a fricking video game in 2002 ended up being spot on, but he couldn't see the vision of being the top guy on HBO.