Sopranos star Michael Imperioli slams US gun laws ahead of Australian visit
On the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre a star of the hit TV series The Sopranos has slammed US gun culture, saying Australia has set an example for the world.
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He played one of the most ruthless killers in television history but Michael Imperioli has slammed the gun culture of the United States and hailed Australia as an example for the world.
Imperioli played gangster Christopher Moltisanti in the The Sopranos, and will make his first trip to Australia next month for a promotional tour for the 20-year anniversary of the hit show.
“Gun control has been very successful in Australia, from what I’ve heard it seems to be a big success,” Imperioli said.
“There were some horrible tragedies there and whatever laws they passed have helped things.”
In the wake of revelations that Australia’s One Nation party attempted to procure $20 million from the pro-gun NRA to weaken gun laws here, Moltisanti described as “insane” the idea that the only way to curb mass shootings in the US is to arm more people.
“The tragedy is that it’s become political, rather than an issue about sense and reality,” he said. “Politicians use it to get elected and stay elected.
“The insanity of the idea of arming teachers is just ridiculous, where does it end?
“Outside of soldiers and policemen, if you can prove to me that having guns does more good than harm, then maybe that will change my mind. But all I see is more harm than good.
“You hear about the odd incident where some guy with a gun shoots the bad guy, but overwhelmingly it does more harm than good.”
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A GAME-CHANGER
It took just the fifth script of The Sopranos to convince Imperioli the show would be a game-changer for television.
Few could make sense of this mobster series created by David Chase in its infancy; it fit neither the drama or comedy genre, but an unfamiliar combination of both.
New Jersey mafia boss Tony Soprano, played imperiously by the mesmeric, late James Gandolfini, sought psychiatric help amid running his criminal enterprise.
The pitch was rejected by four major US networks before cable channel HBO took a gamble. However, they were clashing with Chase immediately.
While central characters murdering rivals is commonplace in television nowadays — Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead — it was uncharted territory 20 years ago when The Sopranos hit the screens.
Imperioli, who played Tony’s younger cousin Christopher Moltisanti, knew history was unfolding when Chase refused to bow down to the network bosses.
“There’s the episode called College in season one where Tony takes [daughter] Meadow up to the local colleges, and he kills a guy who is a rat, who is on the lam and hiding,” Imperioli told The Sunday Telegraph.
“HBO was very nervous about that, and they fought David on that.
“They said, ‘This is the lead character of the show, it’s the fifth episode, you’re going to lose the audience’. And David said ‘No, he’s a gangster, this is what he does’.
“And they gave in to David, they let him do that. I thought it was an incredibly gutsy move; that was the moment.”
20 YEARS OF THE SOPRANOS
What followed was the unfolding of the greatest television show of all time, as voted by Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Guardian and many more.
“What’s surprising to me is, particularly in the last year, there’s been a lot of attention on The Sopranos because it’s the 20 year anniversary, and what has happened is that a whole generation of young people, in their mid-20s, who were too young to watch the show when it was originally on air are now watching it on streaming on Amazon or Netflix or [Foxtel],” Imperioli said.
“They’re getting really into it. I’ve got people coming up to me saying ‘I just watched it for the first time.
“And that is really satisfying, because you may have a show when it is on the air and the people who watched it at that time will remember it, but whether or not another generation will appreciate it and relate to it — that is very hard to do. That is happening, and it’s really exciting for me.”
To mark the 20th anniversary of the first episode, Imperioli is making his first trip to Australia next month, alongside fellow cast members Steven Schirripa (Bobby Baccalieri) and Vincent Passatore (Sal ‘Big Pussy’ Bonpensiero), for a series of question and answer shows, In Conversation With The Sopranos, for fans across the country.
“When I meet people I’m constantly reminded how much they love it, and all kinds of people; those who like good old fashioned action movies and shoot-em-ups, to people who like to read complex psychological novels, it’s a full spectrum,” Imperioli said.
“There’s a lot of levels of appeal to the show.
“If I’m going to be known for anything, I’m proud that it’s this.”
However, Imperioli, whose character was volatile and murderous, is grateful that he is no longer being harassed in the streets for killing his fictional girlfriend’s dog.
“That happened a lot, and usually from people who weren’t mentally stable, people who were a little bit disturbed which was the scary part,” Imperioli said.
“People would get really angry, because I sat on this dog in the show. They’d say, ‘How could you do that?’
“A lot of the people felt worse about the dog than any of the people I killed which I found odd. You kill 20 people and nobody blinks, you sit on a dog and suffocate it and there’s a lot of angry people.”
GROUND BREAKING TELEVISION
As pivotal as The Sopranos was for how television shows are written and consumed — Chase’s refusal to have a musical score, using silence to persuade his audience to form their emotional reaction to drama is one example — Imperioli is disappointed with today’s casting trends.
“I don’t watch a lot of shows now to be honest, I watch a lot of news, and sports,” he said.
“After The Sopranos you had Breaking Bad, Mad Men, those are two really good examples of what came in its wake. And all three leads of those shows; James Gandolfini, Bryan Cranston and Jon Hamm, were relatively unknown to the public.
“They had been acting for years, people in the business might have known them, but they walk down the street, nobody knows who the hell they are.
“And this was a direct 180 of doing things in Hollywood, in film and television.
“Now if you look at what happens in TV, it’s the whole Hollywood system, they need stars to make TV shows.
“The whole thing about The Sopranos was that a lot of these people weren’t really known, and the show became a hit. Now they want to stock it up with stars because they feel it’s going to give them a better shot at being a hit.
“That’s a little bit disappointing.”
Imperioli was nominated for two Golden Globes and five Emmy Awards for his work as Moltisanti, and wrote five episodes of the series, including ‘The Telltale Moozadell’ in season three where a 15-year-old Lady Gaga makes a cameo appearance.
He was also central to one of the finest hours of television, when Imperioli and Tony Sirico (Paulie Gualtieri) encountered an unexpected blizzard before filming the third season episode ‘Pine Barrens’.
“It completely added to it, not only in the visual sense in this totally barren, strange landscape which was now filled with snow, it made it that much more difficult for these guys, but it was the ultimate fish out of water episode,” Imperioli said.
“Whenever Paulie and Christopher were together it was funny, because they were so different, they had a love-hate relationship.
“So you take them and put them in this complete alien environment where they have to survive by their wits and see what’s going to happen, it was a brilliant idea, a great script, and really well directed by Steve Buscemi and written by Terence Winter and Tim Van Patten.”
While few recognised the genius of the show in the opening chapter, cast members were fully aware of its magnitude as they sat together in the Hard Rock Café in Hollywood to watch a live, private screening of the final episode 12 years, with the final scene still causing confusion, outrage and debate among millions of viewers.
For the actors, there was also the sobering realisation that despite the years of work that lay ahead of them, this show would be their defining achievement in the eyes of the public.
“What you need to do is go back to square one, move on and find things you want to do as an artist and that interest you,” Imperioli said.
“The mistake would have been saying, ‘I only have to take lead roles’, or ‘I have to find the next Sopranos’, or ‘I need to make more money and climb the ladder’. That’s a recipe for disaster.
“The year after The Sopranos, I wrote and directed an independent movie, which is what I’ve always done; writing, directing, theatre. I had a company and produced plays.
“I published a novel last year (The Perfume Burned His Eyes), I’m as proud of that as anything else I’ve done.
“I’ll put that right up there with what I did on The Sopranos — I put that higher than what I did on The Sopranos.”
WATCH The Sopranos, Foxtel BoxSets, from Monday or On Demand.
In Conversation With the Sopranos, Enmore Theatre, May 25. Ticketek
In Conversation With the Sopranos, The Star, Gold Coast, May 26. Ticketek
In Conversation With the Sopranos, Crown Theatre, Perth, May 29. Ticketmaster
In Conversation With the Sopranos, Thebarton Theatre, May 30, Ticketmaster
In Conversation With the Sopranos, Palais Theatre, June 1. Ticketmaster
Originally published as Sopranos star Michael Imperioli slams US gun laws ahead of Australian visit
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