044 Inner Soprano transcript (James Gandolfini)

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[00:00:00] Amit: It's time for Famous and Gravy. A conversation about quality of life as we see it. One dead celebrity at a time. Now for the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

[00:00:11] Michael: This person died 2013, age 51. His father was an immigrant who held a number of jobs including janitor, bricklayer, and Mason. His mother was a high school cafeteria chef.

[00:00:24] Friend: Michael Corleone.

[00:00:25] Michael: Not Michael Corleone. I'm not sure that's a real person. Okay, . No, it's not. Okay. A statement that was issued after his death read " he was a special man, a great talent, but more importantly, a gentle and loving person who treated everyone no matter their title or position with equal respect."

[00:00:45] Friend: Fred Rogers.

[00:00:46] Michael: Not Fred Rogers. Boy, what a wonderful guess. He attended Rutgers University graduating in 1983 with a degree in communications. He drove a delivery truck, managed nightclubs, and attended bar in Manhattan before becoming interested in acting at age 25.

[00:01:04] Friend: Uh, so that's a late bloomer for acting. Tony Danza.

[00:01:08] Michael: Not Tony Danza, who I believe as if this recording is still with us. Throughout the nineties, he had an impressive list of character acting credits, but he was largely unknown until David Chase cast him in the role of Tony Soprano in 1999.

[00:01:24] Friend: Tony Soprano, shit. Shit. . I know his name, but I don't know his name. Oh, that's the guy who died young. Uh, James Gandolfo. Gandolfini. Is that how his say his name? James Gandini.

[00:01:35] Michael: Today's dead celebrity is James Gandolfini.

[00:01:41] Archival: Yay. You've said I'd like to play people like my parents. Lawyers and stockbrokers don't interest me. How much of your parents, your family, your friends, and yourself, is in this show? As I've said before, I'm standing on their shoulders here because they worked so hard and enabled me to go to college. And these are the kind of people that I love and these are the kind of people that I wanna show in movies because I think they're getting screwed. And that is where I think if I have any power as an actor, that's where it comes from.

[00:02:18] Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

[00:02:20] Amit: And my name is Amit Kapoor.

[00:02:22] Michael: And on this show we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and review their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question, would I want that life today?

James Gandalf, female died 2013, age 51. Whew. Somehow it doesn't feel like it's been 10 years since we lost James Gini. All right. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. James Gandolfini, the Emmy Award-winning actor who shot to fame on the H B O drama. The Sopranos. As Tony Soprano. A tough talking, hard living crime boss with a solid exterior, but a rich interior life died on Wednesday.

He was 51. I fucking love this one. It's pretty good. I fucking love it. There's some real nuances here. Yeah. I really feel like somebody who was like, I'm gonna make sure there's at least 15 pieces of flare and like got 'em in. Can I

start with a question? Yeah. You

say Stato? Yeah. S T O L I D. What does that mean, looking at it right now?

Stalet means of a person that they are calm, dependable, and showing little emotion or animation. Okay. It's gotta kind of like it's all inside. It's a good word. Yes. It's one of many good words in here. It is. What else do you like? Well,

[00:03:43] Amit: okay, shot to fame. I wrote that down. I wrote that.

[00:03:46] Michael: S h O T. Yes. Yeah, like they shot to fame and then I said, you know, I like that with a solid exterior, but a rich interior life.

Like they're going right at drawing contrast between, you know, what we see and what we intuit going on in this character. Obviously, I mean, this is like, Classic example of we know him for this one thing. Yes, he did a lot of other things, but I take zero issue with the references to the Sopranos and Tony Soprano in the first line of this obituary as the only reference to his, yeah, I mean I, you know, there's other things in the obituary.

This came up in the quiz that, you know, he had other parts that he got great reviews for it. But I do think right outta the gate, this conversation's gonna be a little bit about his relationship with that iconic character.

[00:04:32] Amit: Yeah. Unfortunately, with as short of a life as he had, yeah. It's even more forgivable to only focus on one

[00:04:38] Michael: character.

Yeah, I think that's right. Although, had he lived to 95, I kind of feel like this

[00:04:44] Amit: might not have changed all that much. Shirley Temple Syndrome, like they're just, no matter what else you do,

[00:04:49] Michael: does this concern you that no matter what else you're gonna play for the rest of your life, you're always gonna be Tony Soprano A, I can't do anything about it.

B, there are worst things to be associated with. . See, I think eventually, you know, if you make the right choices, you can get around. When you recognized in the street, do people say, Hey, Mr. Gandini, or Hey Mr. Soprano, Hey Tony. Tony . This is why I love our podcast, AMED. How many other people are comparing Shirley Temple, the James Gandini, you know, tough talking, hard living crime boss.

You know, I mean, this is all sort of, I don't know, stuff along the way. The things that really came out to me were, stall it as a good word, rich interior life, and then shock to fame. You know, I feel like the way to like put these sentences together, the first line of an obituary is to write out the facts and then look for places to, you know, amplify and add some color and some richness to it.

And I feel like they did that. Yeah. So overall, I really like. I think I love it. I mean, let's just spend a minute on Shock to fame, like the double duty it's doing there. Like that is the story of this man's life. Oh, yes. Yeah. He had been around a little bit. We might have been recognized from things like True Romance and get shorty and, you know, a few other parts here and there, but like Tony Soprano shot him like many tears above the rocket ship,

[00:06:07] Amit: as it were, like, was extremely vertical For James Gandini.

Yes. To go from a part actor to like one of the top celebrated actors of the entire decade. Uh, a hundred

[00:06:19] Michael: percent. All right. I got my score. I'm gonna guess what your score is. All right. Guess my score? You're gonna give it a 10? I'm gonna give it a nine. Oh

[00:06:26] Amit: mother f? Yeah. Okay. Why is that? Uh, you can curse.

This is the fucking Soprano's episode. I was concerned. I'm still, we coming off the Maya Angelou. Yeah. You feel like didn and I was like, your language especially as opposed to She was to it. I really think we should, we should just lay 'em all out there like it's good fellows, right? Yeah.

[00:06:41] Michael: The inside the actor studio when the asked about his favorite curse word.

It's

[00:06:45] Amit: a jersey One douche bag. Fucking

[00:06:47] Michael: douche bag. Fucking douche bag. Yeah. . That's really good. So, okay. Permission to use F words. I'm going nine, just cuz I'm feeling a little bit like a strict teacher today. There's something. What is it missing? Why am I going nine? Like they talk about the solid exterior and rich interior life of Tony Soprano.

And there's a hint that that applies to James Gandolfini.

[00:07:11] Amit: I think it absolutely does. You, and I know it does, but is there a hint in the obituary? Well,

[00:07:16] Michael: I don't know. I mean, I think you're sort of like nodding to it by association because he's so singularly associated with this role, but it's not explicit.

And if there is anything that I take issue with, it's probably that the sort of inner life of James Gandini,

[00:07:31] Amit: not Tony Soprano. I have a nine also. And it's exactly what we said. It is the absence of any personal data. Yeah. Whatsoever. It's all implied. And I also just wanna leave one on the table. You know, you always wanna live on the run a little bit.

All right.

[00:07:44] Michael: Category two, five things I love about you here. Amit and I work together to come up with five reasons why we'd love this person, why we should be talking about them in the first place You

[00:07:53] Amit: start. Okay. I wanna do him a little justice. And I don't wanna start with a Sopranos thing. Okay. I'm gonna start with good dad.

His son, Michael was born out of, his first marriage was a child. Really? When James Gandolfini was at his peak. Yeah. And then he came around to play Tony Soprano's son in the Many Saints of Newark,

[00:08:13] Michael: which was the prequel to Sopranos.

[00:08:15] Amit: The way that you see Michael talk about his father in all of these documentaries in interviews was just, it was adorable.

It was not artificial. And it seemed like James Gandini made his son an absolute priority above everything else if you watch his first Emmy's acceptance speech. But the crew who

[00:08:35] Michael: worked so hard and put up with so much to my son Michael, I promised I would do

[00:08:39] Amit: this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. , Michael Gandini to this day, even though he is only 13 years old, when he lost his father, just talks about how hilarious his father was.

You can contrast that to his relationship with AJ Soprano. Yeah, . Uh, but this is the one uniquely gandini thing that I think is Complet. Separate from Tony Soprano. And I just wanna lead off by giving James Gandini credit for that. And let me also say he had a one-year-old daughter as well. Yeah, I

[00:09:09] Michael: was about to mention, and his wife, his second wife, who, who was the mother of his second child, said something to the effect of, I know she was only one, but I cannot tell you what an loving, adoring father he was when he was with us.

Good 1:00 AM I didn't expect you to come outta the gate with that one. Oh, thank you.

[00:09:25] Amit: So number two, off to you. Wow.

[00:09:27] Michael: Um, I mean, I do want to get at Tony Supreme. I know you. That's

[00:09:31] Amit: why I knew we were going to, that's why I started off with the detour.

[00:09:34] Michael: The way I wrote it is ability to express primal emotions.

He's a complicated guy. He's a classic R-rated kind of figure where there's all kinds of emotions just beneath the surface. I mean, his ability to. Rage. And to be on the verge of rage is astonishing. I say what your mother has at the very least is what we call borderline personality disorder, a borderline personality disorder, twisted fucking bitch.

That's my mother we're talking about. That's some fuck up in Attica. Stab you in the shower. She whipped. Woo.

[00:10:11] Amit: You and I

[00:10:12] Michael: had a friend once say, anger is not a primary emotion. Like there's fear underneath that and I believe that, but let's just call anger a primal emotion for now. I also want to talk about his sex appeal.

[00:10:23] Amit: You know, I got

[00:10:23] Michael: this like sexy thing from the Tony Soprano thing and that happened when I like started wearing my underwear and let all my fat rolls hang out , and all of a sudden it's like, oh, he's sexy because, but he's sexy because in the, he likes to in the show. I think that's what's sexy about him. I had this conversation with my wife must have been 20 years ago when we were just getting into the Sopranos.

And so being early on in our relationship and also. Being a guy in his young twenties, I basically had the idea that sex appeal for women to men is totally correlated with a certain physique and body ideal. I thought women like jacked guys or whatever. I didn't think that much about it. And so the first interesting conversation I had with Alison where that notion was challenged was around James Gandolfini.

She's like, there's something

[00:11:11] Amit: about him. So pick your lane here. Michael. Is this about primal emotion or is this about sex appeal? I'm not saying this segue.

[00:11:17] Michael: I guess it's primary emotion in terms of. Expressing sexuality, which I would call sexual desire as a primary emotion. There's just something so like reductively human about the guy, like he's able to put on display and amplify emotions that we are all feeling.

I'd put humor in there as well. I mean, there's other people who are interesting to watch and you're kind of like excited to. Where the story goes. But in terms of like, you know, you feel like you just barely pierce the skin and you get at the big emotional complexity of a human. Yeah. Like there's something about Gandini that's right there.

So

[00:11:55] Amit: that's my number two. Yeah. And I, well I think the bridge that you hinted at that you didn't quite draw the line, is that his expression of emotion, especially vulnerability. Yeah. Coupled with power and toughness Yeah. Is what makes the sex appeal. Yeah, I, I think

[00:12:09] Michael: that's right. That's how I actually don't understand sex appeal,

I mean, I do. No, we're not meant to. Yeah. I guess not , I guess not. I mean, even fucking Diane Lane who was in a movie with him Yeah. You know, talked about like,

[00:12:21] Amit: the only

[00:12:22] Michael: thing that surprised me was his sex appeal in person. He's.

[00:12:29] Amit: Huh.

[00:12:30] Michael: One way or another, like he is able to draw to the surface emotions that people are like waiting to experience as they're watching movies and tv and I think it's his great power.

So that's thing number two for me.

[00:12:41] Amit: Okay. So, uh, I can take that into a number three Very well, and that's one of the mechanisms by which he does it. Okay. And I'm gonna say all time, great use of eyes and brows. Ooh. Yeah. So he, uh, more than anyone I've can recall of the last 20, 30 years use his, his eyes perfectly to act.

His eyes are worth pages of dialogue. Yes. The way that he can pierce them, move them, roll them. Stare. It's just brilliant acting with eyes.

[00:13:12] Michael: David Chase likened it to Mozart, you know? Exactly. I mean, he's, he's really pointing to

[00:13:17] Amit: like a gift. And we talked about this with Roger Moore, with the eyebrow. Nobody else could own the eyebrow like Roger Moore did.

And I think no one else can own the eyes like Gandolfini did. And it wasn't just the way he used his eyes, it's the way that he used the brows also. Yes. So he didn't give it a Roger Moore or Mr. Bean type of raise, but he always would like brush against his eyebrows. Yeah. And you never knew what followed that.

There was either gonna be rage or there was just gonna be internal bottling. And this was in both Tony Soprano and James Kini? Yeah. You could see it in interviews. You could see it in the inside the actor's studio. That when he had a tough question, he'd wipe the brows and then look down and then come up, and then eyes would dart both ways.

And you still weren't sure what was gonna come out next.

[00:14:03] Michael: Look, there is a real risk in this episode of spending too much time, like sort of loving on Tony Soprano and the Sopranos. I ended up watching this video by some guy, nerd writer one Eddie, uh, push check is his name. He's got like 3 million followers on YouTube, okay?

And he does this thing where he breaks down a scene, he's like trying to explain. As his emotion ramps back up, it becomes infused with an intense vulnerability as if he's on the verge of tears. She kept fucking, she kept going, and I j I started screaming at her. So I left. And your cousin doesn't know this.

Oh, I lied. What am I gonna tell him in a fight with my mother and I, and I fainted it. That's why I missed the. It's Gandolfini's ability to convey these deep inner reserves of vulnerability and insecurity to let us glimpse the tender source of his destructive passions that make him a sympathetic character on which the entire series depends.

That's what's so exciting about great entertainment, is that you get into somebody's inner life. This is in the first line of the obituary, this rich inner life. I, I do love that line quite a bit because what you want is to sort of feel like you're smart enough as a viewer to be putting together the inner dialogue of a character.

And he does that with his eyes and bro, All right, my number four, I'm gonna actually sort of put together two disparate pieces here. You said great father, I'm gonna extend that to great father on the set of soprano. So people do talk about a long running successful series as creating a family life thing.

This came up in a couple of interesting ways. One is how he helped raise the salaries of the other cast members. So, you know, when we get to seasons, I think two, three, and four and beyond, cuz it goes to seven seasons, James Gandolfini winds up having some very tense contract negotiations with H B O. But along the way, one thing that happens is he does help argue for elevated salaries of the rest of the cast members.

He also is. There's some stories about him, you know, having some real benders, I think more or less, where he's a no-show on set. And he would try and make amends to everybody on set by doing these like extraordinary gestures. Like I ordered a sushi chef today and we're all gonna have sushi. Or I brought in an army of masseuses and everybody gets a massage.

Really? Sorry. I, uh, wasted your last three days. I . Yeah. And held up production of our show while I was out there going. You know, it's a little bit pathetic, maybe to like try and make up to people with gifts. But I think, you know, these gestures matter. I find them lovable and also like what can I do for everybody to apologize?

It speaks to family relationships or surrogate family relationships. You know, on a show like

[00:16:52] Amit: this I, I mean I didn't learn this until the research, but he really did have significant substance problems. Yeah. Throughout a lot of the filming of the Sopranos. Especially in the earlier years. Right. But there was one instance around season two or season three that they couldn't even find him for three days.

Yes. And they finally found him like getting a pedicure. Yeah. in Newark. Yeah.

[00:17:11] Michael: Yeah. So, uh, so you know, I think there's a family man on set. I love some of these gestures. So that's my number four.

[00:17:18] Amit: Wow. You took away so many of mine. Your two and Vs were like thematic. Okay, here's what I'm gonna go with. Again, I'm, I started with a non toney soprano.

I'm gonna end with a non toney soprano. I'm gonna say his work in drawing awareness to P T S D. Really, this was his one passion project that he was able to get off the ground as the Sopranos was getting huge. He did a lot of tours of Iraq, Afghanistan. He's visiting all these people that are severely injured in battle, as well as just going through the general military camps as your typical just cheer up tour.

Yeah. But it really hit a soft spot in his heart. He feels like the world. Does not understand the level of sacrifice that is involved in going to combat the way that P T S D manifests in the body and the head that, you know, he made these documentaries that even go back to the Civil War, but even through World War I and World War II and being like, this is how people struggled for the remaining years of their lives.

Yeah. And he really wanted to draw attention to that, specifically through the military. But it was through, I think, a larger lens. Now that we know kind of more about the inner life of James Gandini, I like the devotion to the cause. Yeah. Uh, I like the awareness of the issue and how it is specific. To him.

But thirdly, I think the believability of it coming from the guy who played Tony Soprano to put out these H B O documentaries. Yeah. What

[00:18:45] Michael: an interesting ambassador to do it. I mean it's, on some level it's an acknowledgement of, I just wanna remind everybody that whatever you see me doing on this show is pretend.

And that beyond that, there is a real thing going on. And this war over here and these people going to war and being on the front lines is not play even though everybody's experiencing it on their television. And you also see, I mean, there's that moment in one of those documentaries where, you know, he has a very emotional conversation with somebody who's lost a limb.

And the guy has this testimonial of like, would you mind calling my fiance real quick? He took the phone and he was smiling. You know, that freaking getting afeni smile man. First thing Jimmy said to her, Hey, I gotta ask you a favor. Be patient with him. Cause he knew, you know, I mean, he knew that this was a well gonna be a long fight.

I still had a lot of fighting to do. I mean, the dude had just met me. I mean, but I could tell it was, uh, already really

[00:19:44] Amit: genuine.

[00:19:46] Michael: That's a good cap. Okay, let's recap. So thing number one, good dad thing. Number two, ability to express primal emotions including anger and sex. Thing. Number three, use of eyes and brows thing number four, dad on set, or at least father figure on set.

And some of the gestures towards making amends. Thing number five, driving

[00:20:05] Amit: awareness

[00:20:06] Michael: of P T S D. Okay, category three, Malkovich. Malkovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malkovich, in which people can take a portal into John Malkovich mind and they can have a front row seat to his experiences.

So, Today on Famous and Gravy, we're doing something a little bit different. Recently, Ahed and I connected with a guy named Michael Warburton, who's over in the uk. I'm Michael Warburton, based in London. Been an actor since the age of 11. I'm a huge cinephile, hugely into theater, hugely into culture and all the arts, but one of the things I'm really fascinated by is what makes people tick as artists.

We found each other on Twitter. Michael is posting all kinds of awesome movie clips, and it was very famous and gravy kind of stuff. Turns out he's also got a CK called So Far So and so I reached out to Michael and said, Hey, you know, would you be interested in doing a short guest spot on the show and maybe bring a Malkovich moment for James Gand.

[00:21:04] Amit: So this is the theme that has come up a lot. People have asked us, have you ever thought about bringing in a third voice? Yeah. And how Michael and I do this is strategically, we like experiments and so we figured putting a third chair in the studio might be a little much at first, but we wanna try some things out.

[00:21:20] Michael: So War Burton and I recorded a short conversation and the Malkovich moment he chose is when James Gandini first auditions for Tony Soprano. This really is a great example of how authentic this guy was. This was H B O A huge role in a brand new H B O drama. Gandini saw this character and went, Jesus Christ, so much of this is me.

This is insane. I think, I can't know. But once he got to the audition, the gravity of all this really bore down on him. He goes in, he's doing the audition, he's halfway through and he says, no, I'm out. As he's walking out, he turns around and says, I'm not doing this well enough, and I didn't prepare well enough, and he just walked out.

And of course they could have just turned around and said, well, this guy's a lunatic. You know, maybe he'll do this on set. This is crazy. But this was how authentic he was. I'm not ready. I haven't done enough work. I haven't taken this seriously enough. I'm a pro. I'm walking out now. He came back apparently the same day, can't remember where it was.

It might even have been David Chase's garage and completed and finished the audition. It was like, okay, here's Tony Soprano,

got myself gun to break this down a little bit. Gandini had some acting success. He's in Get shorty, he's in True Romance. There's some other parts where he's getting cast. You know, I gotta think that like you get these scripts, you read through it, you get a sense of it. You go in and you're ready. Right?

For him to get in there and say, wait a second, maybe I'm not ready. This is the thing that makes this a good malkovich moment to me. I really wonder if he. Saw something in the script that said, wait, this is smarter than I realized at first glance. He's probably used to getting typecast used to being the big, tough guy.

But you know, even in the pilot, we meet his therapist, right? And we are getting into emotional complexity. It's really, I want to know what he saw in the script that said, fuck, I'm not ready for this. I'm gonna go home. David Chase. Maybe I can come to your garage later.

[00:23:26] Amit: You know, people have gut instincts, but if there's a lesson to be taken away, it's, you know, have the courage.

If things aren't going right and you're feeling it in your gut, take a step back and say, I need a mu, it's

[00:23:40] Michael: a ballsy. From Gandini,

[00:23:43] Amit: but whether it's the casting director or the admittance office, they can also praise it for the ballsy

[00:23:51] Michael: move. So that's my malkovich. I'm gonna have war Burton's Malkovich be my malkovich today.

So, okay, that's what we got. All right,

[00:23:57] Amit: you're up. Okay. Season four of the Sopranos, there is a scene, I believe it's AJ's birthday party, AJ being Tony Soprano's son. Yeah. And they have like a cookout at a pool party. And um, Tony wears like a Tommy Bahama shirt and kind of cargo shorts, . And later on he meets with Carmine, the older mob boss, who was in some way, Tony's predecessor.

And Carmine says to him, John said he went to a cookout

[00:24:26] Michael: at your house. Don doesn't wear shorts. .

[00:24:32] Amit: So that scene in 2004 was a nod to something that actually happened. Yeah. In around season one or season two, when the Sopranos is gaining notoriety big enough to attract the attention of the actual mob. Yeah.

And they were watching it and they were fans. And so James Gandini, not Tony Soprano is at his house and in the middle of the night gets a phone call and I'm just gonna read what the call actually said. Gandini answers. The phone just says hello. The guy on the other line doesn't say anything. He pauses.

He goes, listen, you're a great actor. We'd like what you're doing, but you got to know one thing. A Don never wears shorts. click . And so he got called out for it for wearing shorts as Tony Soprano in one of the first two seasons. So let's malkovich this. Yes. For a second. So one, I would wonder. Am I in the actual mob now?

Right. And I think that is what he is serious, seriously wondering.

[00:25:34] Michael: And it's not like Hollywood and the mob don't have a long history. Right. I mean, Frank Sinatra and you know, there's all kinds of stories throughout the

[00:25:40] Amit: years. Secondly, perhaps worst, is there a hit on me? Like if I wear shorts again, is this a warning

Like that I'm gonna be misrepresenting, uh, families everywhere. Yeah. To do it. Like he's gotta be seriously wondering, is this a joke? Is this advice or is this a threat? Yeah,

[00:25:59] Michael: it's a good question.

[00:26:00] Amit: I think it's a mostly they're fucking with him.

[00:26:03] Michael: Yeah, totally. Let's pause for a word from our sponsor.

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[00:26:12] Amit: I am. I'm actually looking at your bookshelf. I wanna see if there is anything that I can give as a gift to

[00:26:20] Michael: somebody. Uh, with my permission, I assume.

[00:26:24] Amit: Well, no, I was just gonna take it off your

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[00:26:44] Amit: you. You. But the thing is, I trust you. There's nowhere else that I can find a trusted book seller to give me an equal recommendation.

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category four, love and Marriage. How many marriages, also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? We nodded to this earlier. There are two marriages, Marcy Waki. They were married in 1999, divorced in 2002, so that's right when the Sopranos was taking off. James was 38 when they got married, divorced at 41.

They were married in March of 1999. And the son, Michael was born in May of 1999. Nobody else called this out, but do the math. It sounds like perhaps, perhaps

[00:28:03] Amit: his wedding shot to

[00:28:04] Michael: success. Well, , yeah, I did. So we mentioned this also nasty divorce and it does come out, this is the first time we learned, you know, in a kind of tabloidy way that he had been to at least a couple rehabs.

There's like signs of substance abuse struggle for James Gandini, you know, and he had worked in nightclubs and he'd been a bouncer and you know, it sort of sounds. Koch was around in the eighties and nineties as he was coming up. So it's not totally surprising. Plus, you know, I mean, this is a classic Hollywood story.

Somebody shoots to fame with this kind of pressure. You often see people struggling with substance abuse. Anyway, so acrimonious divorce. And

[00:28:46] Amit: the third part of that, in addition to drugs and alcohol, was also self-abuse. Yes. So he was not abusing her. He was so punishing of himself. Yeah. There's no domestic abuse anywhere that I saw.

Yeah, yeah. But he was so punishing of himself for the drugs and alcohol that he used to literally punch himself in the face. Yeah. And she couldn't stand it. Yeah. And basically that was the impetus for the divorce. Look, a lot of

[00:29:07] Michael: his rage is turned inward. There's

[00:29:09] Amit: no more literal of an example of it than that.

That's right. You know, I saw this marriage from 1999 to 2002, knowing that the Sopranos launched 1999. Yeah. And it looked to me like, okay, I'm famous now. I can leave behind like. The old life and traded in for a better one. But that certainly wasn't the case at all. Right? It was his problems that she left him.

Correct.

[00:29:31] Michael: Do we need to, actually, before we go on to marriage number two, I mean, I feel like everybody knows how important the Sopranos is in television history. Do we need to spend any time talking about that? Uh, I mean,

[00:29:40] Amit: recently we cracked the top hundred charts in our category. That's in That's true.

Croatia, Finland. We've done it in Egypt before. Yeah. So yeah, it's useful. I

[00:29:50] Michael: think Famous and Gravy is taking off in the Eastern European block and in, uh, Africa. We had one week on the charts in Ireland. It was very exciting. Yes. All I guess I just wanted to point out is like, you cannot overstate how important this show was.

Brian Cranston said there would be no Walter White without Tony Soprano, you know, mad Men and no Don Draper without, yeah. You know, it's almost like cereal with podcasts. Like it's just one of these landmark things. Would Breaking Bad have been made if we didn't have The Sopranos? I don't think so.

Creating a character like Tony Soprano was certainly paving the way to allow the space for someone like Walter White to exist. It feels like there is empathy for the bad guy. Well, what you root for is humanity. When you see the humanity in Tony Soprano looking for some measure of wholeness as a human being, that's embrace.

Okay. Wife number two, Deborah Lynn. James was 47 when they got married. She was a former model. She had been on daytime tv. They had a daughter who was one when James died, and she's largely retreated from the limelight. So two marriages, and they'd been engaged for some time before they got married in 2008.

Yeah. Okay. What do we wanna talk about?

[00:31:08] Amit: I think a few things. So his first marriage, he was 38. Yeah. Right. Which is a little bit late. It's a little older. I mean, he didn't have a steady life before that. Right. He was bartending Emanuel Nightclub. He was doing these bit rolls. Yeah. Somewhat of a late bloomer, a little bit.

Even if that marriage lasted. That's correct. Did not have his shit together. As you pointed out with the pregnancy math, perhaps there wasn't so much of a self choice of timing. Yeah. What he did in his dating life between 2002 and. 2008 is not very public. I know that he was, and a lot of the Sopranos stars were known for this, for being on the scene a bit.

Yeah. You know, like they were spotted around New York bars and Totally clubs. Totally. And all. Totally. And I'm not saying that they were womanizing necessarily, but a cop partying. Yeah. Yeah. There was a pack of nightlife dwellers. Right. If you will. So maybe he just kind of had fun with the new Fanon fame, but there was no signs of much relationship in between.

Yeah. The fact that he got married in 2008 after the Sopranos was over, I also kind of like that gave some space, I suppose, to commit to Deborah Lynn in the new life in a

[00:32:14] Michael: different way. You know, Deborah Lynn, was she a soulmate? I don't know. Maybe. Hard to say. They were married a few years before he died.

Five. Yeah. Okay. That's pretty good. And you know, it does sound like he was still finding his post sopranos footing in some sense. I mean, he was acting, but you know, there was still a lot of association and then he drops dead. And I guess it should also be said that it was a son Michael, who found him dead.

Yes. Um, which sounds horrible and traumatic and I don't know, goes back to your thing, number one, and like must have been a good father for his son to be so willing to talk about his dad, you know, to this day. Anyway, I don't know that I have a whole lot to infer from this. There's so much complicated stuff going on with James Gandini from the moment he gets cast as Tony Sopr.

Until his death that his ability to be a loving partner in a relationship in a marriage. You know, at first it doesn't go well and then maybe it does, who knows? And I just don't know that there's all

[00:33:13] Amit: that much to say. I mean, I would just say this is that I think you need some grip on your emotional issues.

Yeah. If you're gonna have a lasting marriage, yes.

[00:33:21] Michael: But did he, do we know

[00:33:23] Amit: by the second marriage? Yeah. We don't know. But he sure as hell didn't on the first. Yeah,

[00:33:28] Michael: I think that's right. Category five. Yes. Net worth.

[00:33:33] Amit: Did you see this? Yes. 70 million. 70 million. That's big. That's huge. That's a lot. He was getting 3 million per episode of the Sopranos.

Was it much towards

[00:33:43] Michael: the end? It's a little hard to follow because H B O opened that up before they had to, but then his representatives weren't clearly playing hardball, realizing you have no show without him and recognizing how important the show was. Correct. So there is massive windfall and they played hardball in won.

But wow. 70 million. I mean, in addition to everything else being upended about your life, you know the money windfall is incredible.

[00:34:10] Amit: Yeah. At 50 years old. I mean 51

[00:34:12] Michael: years old. That's a lot. Yeah. So how do we feel about

[00:34:14] Amit: it? I mean, I, I feel okay given the age, it's a lot of money to die with. But you didn't know you were.

Die. Yeah. So well rewarded,

[00:34:23] Michael: right? Uh, uh, appropriate. But I don't know about desirable, like the instantaneous overnight sensation. That's just so disorienting. Right? I

[00:34:33] Amit: don't know

[00:34:33] Michael: how ready he was for it. Like everything that happens to him after the Sopranos takes off is, I don't know, confusing and hard, including the money, you know, what it does to your inner life to suddenly be praised like this, to be wealthy like this, to be recognizable like this.

Looks hard, man. I'm okay with the number. I don't take issue with the number, but it seems like of a piece of other things happening to James Gandini, you know, over the last 15 years. Yeah. It's

[00:35:04] Amit: potentially crucible is what you're saying. That's correct. So I have a slightly different look on it. It's that, you know, you look at what he did both pre and post Sopranos and it's largely pretty indie stuff.

Yeah. And I would think that, uh, James Gandini and had he have lived a long life and continued to act, I don't see him necessarily taking on all like the De Niro and Pacino type of roles. Now what do you mean by that? Like Sopranos might have just been his hit and his money maker, and then he lives as this kind of indie star throughout the rest of his career.

Yeah. Almost like a William Hich or something like that.

[00:35:42] Michael: Yeah. That's fair. I mean, and he returns to the stage. There's that play he does with Jeff Daniels

[00:35:46] Amit: and uh,

[00:35:47] Michael: yeah, he does a lot of stage right and, and that, that speaks to a love of the craft that I think is there. I don't think he's like wallowing away in hotel rooms wondering what the fuck's it all about.

I think that there are healthy outlets for him after the experience of the Sopranos and after, you know, the rise of it. If what we are talking about though is desirability 70 million. Sure. It looks desirable. Kind of the rate at which that number is achieved is a little bit uncomfortable. Correct. But

[00:36:17] Amit: we have no rate at which it churns.

Yeah, that's true. And that's the data that's unfortunately missing from a life that ends us young.

[00:36:23] Michael: That's a good point. All right. Category six Simpson Saturday Night Live or Hall of Fame category As a measure of how famous a person is, we include both guest appearances on SNL or The Simpsons as well as impersonations.

There's some good shit in this song. There's some really good ones. Yeah. There is a Simpsons episode with Fat Tony where they riff on the opening scene of The Sopranos, which is great. We'll show notes that it's got the woke up this morning song, and it's like they're driving around Springfield and getting these like vignettes of Springfield in a way that very much mis parroting the opening of the Sopranos.

In the same episode, Sopranos actors, Joe Pen Leoni, and Michael Imperiali voice mob characters. But James Kini does not. Saturday Night Live. Two things. He does make a cameo, he doesn't host, but there is a, a new segment weekend update. Would now like to present an editorial from this New Jersey resident.

How you doing? ? Uh, would you, would you like to sit down? No, no. I'm gonna, uh, stand in case I, I, I wanna leave. Okay. So, So, uh, you're editorial

[00:37:26] Amit: about Jim McGreevey. Look, look, I

didn't

[00:37:27] Michael: wanna talk about this McGreevey stuff, but I can't keep my mouth shut anymore. I mean, so the guys are Fanook, , big deal. He had an affair.

Every married guy's got some action on the side, , in this case, in the behind . But instead of just paying the guys rent and banging them in a penguin house on a Zoom, , McGreevy puts

[00:37:49] Amit: Gamar on a payroll.

[00:37:50] Michael: And I think, whoa, don't interrupt me when I'm talking . Sorry I didn't, I didn't mean to

[00:37:58] Amit: interrupt you.

[00:37:59] Michael: Well use your head.

And then there is a Sopranos parity where Darryl Hammond plays the role of Tony Soprano. So we have some notches there. Nothing on Arsenio. That's not surprising. This sort of frustrated me. I did not see a Hollywood star. Yeah, that's, isn't that surprising to you? Very much so. I guess it's because the show is sort of timeless and people continue to rewatch it and continue to write about it and think about it, that James Gandini, like that name is gonna remain very, very big for a very long time.

Yes. And obviously absent the Sopranos. That wouldn't be true. This is the Leonard Nemoy territory of Spock. Right. So very, very famous and for pretty obvious reasons. Like

[00:38:48] Amit: tons of awards though. Yeah. If not the Halls of fame. Right. So countless Golden Globes nominated for things outside of the Sopranos as well.

Yeah. So in the Mexican Yeah. Um, in Enough Said, which is the very last movie, there were nominations and there was acting a claim there.

[00:39:03] Michael: Yeah. And I think a general reverence.

[00:39:05] Amit: Totally. I, I need to spout my personal favorite hall of fame. He is enshrined in the New Jersey Hall of Fame, along with John Travolta.

And do you know the Travolta story?

[00:39:15] Michael: Yeah. What was it? It was like James Gandolfini's dad, like went to a mechanic. Who was John Travolta's dad.

[00:39:22] Amit: Yes. Is that it? So same town in Italy? Yeah. They uh, same town in Italy or same

[00:39:26] Michael: town in New Jersey, Italy. Oh, I didn't quite put that

[00:39:29] Amit: together. Yes. Gandolfini's father used to buy tires from Travolta's father.

As the legend goes. Travolta being that much older than Gandini, Gandolfini has been with his father to this tire shop. Seeing a picture of the tire salesman's son, John Travolta and Gandini gets the ideas just sort of sprinkled in his head that maybe I too can be an actor.

[00:39:51] Michael: Well, and they started movies together.

Five,

[00:39:54] Amit: uh, was it that many five movies together. All right. Shall we move

[00:39:57] Michael: on? Yes. Category seven over under, in this category, we look at the generalized life expectancy for the year someone was born to see if they beat the house odds, and as a measure of grace, life expectancy for a man born in nineteen sixty one, seventy five years old, James Gandini died at age 51, so 24 years under a heart attack in Italy.

No sign of substance or anything like that. Or self-harm. Correct. It was just a straight up heart

[00:40:24] Amit: attack. Yeah. I mean, the weight plus the previous substance abuse could have been

[00:40:27] Michael: contributors. Yeah. We'll talk more about that later. Yeah, and

[00:40:30] Amit: I think grace kind of is irrelevant here when it's such a unexpected death.

Yeah. But I think what you and I need to air out is the factoring. Because we brought this up in Bismarck Key, right? Who died at 57? Yeah. So when we are gonna get to the VanDerBeek in a few minutes, you had told me on that one, we gotta factor this out. It's

[00:40:49] Michael: only that this is a more complicated question.

That was my point in Bismarck key. It's my same point here. So I don't know, I, I, I guess I just don't know how to think through desirability, given that death is inevitable. and there may be contributing factors to a particular form of death at a particular time. I guess what I'm trying to dance around here is that I do feel like James Gandini got some responsibility for his health and that there were maybe measures he could have taken to improve his health so that he could have had a longer life.

The same time there's genetics, there's environmental pressures, there's cultural pressures, and I wouldn't for a minute suggest it's his fault he had died of a

[00:41:27] Amit: heart attack. If you reduce it to saying, do you want this life, and you know the life ends at 51, a lot of people just immediately tip towards, no, right, but we've gotta find the right balance.

to do it. And so I think we evaluate those 51 years as a completion of life, but I don't think we can say that we don't want it because it ended at 51. I

[00:41:52] Michael: don't know. I kind of do though too. I mean, at least for him, there's a part of me that like, and, and I don't know how to quantify this at all, but there are some people who, you know, you hear the news and your first reaction is, oh my God, you know?

Which was a little bit true with James Gandini, my gosh, was shocked. I think very unexpected. Yeah. Yeah. I think very un, I mean, think about when Chris Farley died. I had a similar reaction, right? So, yeah, I guess some of it I am, I'm basing this on like some sort of expectation I have for how long they were quote unquote supposed to have lived.

I do think his premature death tells me something about desirability of his life, and I think I'll reserve some of those thoughts for later. What about

[00:42:34] Amit: you? I don't know. I still feel like we're skirting around the issue of do we or do we not weigh it?

[00:42:40] Michael: I don't think it should be binary, ahed. I guess that's my point.

I don't think it should be always weighed or always not. I think it's gotta be like everything else on our show, a case by case basis. It's gotta be surrounded by context. I mean, do you think he was surprised when he dropped dead at age 51 at that

[00:42:58] Amit: exact moment that he is having a life?

[00:43:00] Michael: Yeah. Do you think he had more life in him?

Yeah, maybe. That's what I'm trying to get at. I mean, the whole point of our show is to try and imagine what it's like to walk in those shoes. I don't think there's a clean conclusion to this. I'd like there to be a cleaner. Uh, well keep thinking about her as we keep talking about the inner life of James Gandini.

Yeah, I think so. I think that's what we have to do. Okay. Have to pause for another. Christopher Walken alive. The

[00:43:27] Amit: rules are simple.

[00:43:29] Michael: Dead are alive, correct? 79. He's getting up there as of this recording. Tony Bennett alive, correct? Yes. I know because like he's kind of on the death watch list. 96, uh, edit James Dead.

Correct. We lost her in 2012. What? What did I get about half of those right now. You got five outta seven. That's okay. Thank you for playing. All right, thanks. Test your knowledge dead or live app.com Category eight, man in the mirror. What did they think about their own? Can I just read you what I wrote out please?

Tough one leaning. No, there's something about the way he shifts around, like, you know what I mean? It's almost like bobble heady, right? I mean you can almost feel the bones kind of like moving around the body. This is where I think I want to talk about sex appeal. I think he's a

[00:44:25] Amit: little surprised

[00:44:26] Michael: by his own sex appeal.

I think it has to do with power cuz uh, I think Kissinger said power is the great aphrodisiac. Yes. And there's something powerful about the guy in his physicality and his proximity to his own primal emotions. There are some moments where he talks about like, you know, I thought they were gonna cast a more handsome guy as Tony Soprano, and I don't think James Gandini completely understands his own power.

No, definitely not. I mean, you've used the word body positive and I suspect that's where you're gonna go with this, but I don't know. I sense some insecurity

[00:45:00] Amit: here. On his physical appearance? Yes. Yeah. I don't, even though I, I hear you in the shiftiness. Yeah. In the chair. I think he wears his weight so well, throws it around when he needs to, and somehow has this tremendous sex appeal through the combination of his power and his vulnerability.

Yeah, and he's said as much in interviews that, like he said, when I am thinner, I don't feel the same. So to get like further to self-actualization, he needs to be a little thick. That's just what God has decided for him. I think he knows that that's just what his body type is, and I don't think he goes to great lengths to maintain that exact physique.

Yeah, I agree with all of that. But however, the insecurity, the self punishing, like what his first wife said. Yeah, yeah. About how he used to punish himself for his drinking and drug problem, you know, the substance abuse that that continued like throughout a good bit of the Sopranos. I just don't see the evidence that maybe he had enough time to completely reckon with the insecurities.

And I think part of that is that he just didn't have enough time. So I'm gonna go with a no on man in the mirror.

[00:46:14] Michael: All right. Category nine. Outgoing message like man in the mirror. How do we think they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine or outgoing voicemail?

Also, would they have used the default setting or would they have recorded it themselves? I think it's a tough one. I said that again, what I wrote down, another tough one. I wanna talk about the accent as we litigate this. You know, when you hear him in interviews, it almost seems like he's doing extra work to distinguish James Gandolfini's accent from Tony Soprano's accent.

Yeah, and certainly when Tony Soprano like loses his shit, the sort of exaggerated jersey accent comes out. And a question I have here is how self-aware he is. I think on some level he is self-aware of his own voice and the accent. And this is actually my main criticism as an actor. Maybe this is stupid, but you know, the actors that really, really, really impress me disappear into roles.

They can do different accents. I don't think James Gandolfini is capable of doing a role that doesn't have a New Jersey. I don't think he can play somebody from the South or a Brit or

[00:47:26] Amit: anything like that, right? Yeah. He broke away from mafia roles enough. Yeah, but he didn't break away from Jersey rules.

So for all the

[00:47:33] Michael: accolades that he gets as a great actor, I actually have, this is a little bit my hot take some reservation with that. I think he's extraordinarily well cast as Tony Soprano, obviously, but the greatness of his acting, to me, it's a convergence of forces, right? It's David Chase, it's the writers, it's H B O, giving latitude to tell a complex story and so forth that allows James Gandini to shine in this role.

You know, he is not Daniel de Lewis. He's not Phillip Seymour Hoffman. For me. He's not Meryl Streep. He's not quite reaching those height. I'm gonna lean no on the voice because I think he would like more control over his accent, and I think that while he is in touch with some of his emotions, more so than you would think, I think that there's also not as much control as he wants, and I think that that's expressed

[00:48:25] Amit: in the voice and the personality type and self importance of putting it on there.

I

[00:48:30] Michael: kind of think that he's got an every man quality. Like he likes blue collar characters. Yeah. I think he wouldn't bat twice about leaving his voice on the answering machine, say, this is Jimmy

[00:48:39] Amit: Gandini. I think so. That's the other thing. I mean, we're just now at this point in the episode, but nobody called him James.

Yeah. He was Jim or Jimmy to everybody. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna go with a no as well. I think what you said about the accent, how he has to like make a conscious choice to not sound like Tony Soprano. Yeah. In interviews. But the fact that he barely did interviews, he didn't like to do interviews. When we say, do they like the sound of their own voice, it's how sick of themselves are they?

Yeah. In some way. Yeah. Not just Do I sound good? Yeah. But I just don't think he wanted to hear himself and I don't think he sat there rewatching episodes of The Sopranos. I think he was proud of his work. I think he loved the shit out of his work. I think he had a lot of fun with it, but I don't think he wanted to hear it.

So I'm gonna know. Would he have left it on a voicemail? Yeah, but I'm agreeing with you on the Every man part of it.

[00:49:28] Michael: Category 10 regrets of public or private. What we really want to know is what, if anything, kept this person awake at night? So we've talked about this a lot actually already on the show.

This sort of emotions beneath the surface, the stress, inner turmoil. You know, I'm not an actor, so this was actually something that came up when I talked to our friend Michael Ward Barton, cuz I just needed to hear from an actor what you imagine the stress is of a role and of a performer who's got those emotions, like right beneath the surface.

Here's what Warburton had to say. Guy died of a heart attack. Now you could argue, look, it was, he was overweight. Maybe there were, I didn't see his autopsy report, so I don't know exactly what precipitated the heart attack. This is pure conjecture. Well, so is our show ? Well, yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, I'm gonna fit right in then, aren't you?

Yeah, . But again, he's another one of those great artists, actor creative types, who obviously had massive amounts of rage, massive amounts of issues inside. And great, brave and courageous actors will not only want access to those, but want easy, free, wildly open access to those so that they can pull on those at a nanoseconds notice and use it for a nanosecond or a minute, or a scene, or an entire episode, or an entire movie, whatever it is.

And he had that courage, which is, it's so dichotomous that such a physically macho, male, strong, powerful specimen of manhood. Yeah. Actually could convince. Emotions and gentility and honesty and fragility as easily and as well as he did. I would imagine that the struggle as often as he did, and to the extent and the level that he did, I would be surprised if that didn't have some kind of concomitant effect in terms health.

There's a few things going on with James Gandolfini. On one level, I think he is more in touch with his emotions than you would otherwise give him credit for. If you ran into him on the street, you would kind of think, oh, fish, you know, like low eq. That's not true. That can't be true. You can't have done this role with that.

But does he also go sort of like master of his own emotions? Right. And I don't feel like that's there either. So it's somewhere in between. I don't know how that adds up to a regret, but I do think that like he has one major creative outlet performance and that is absolutely a healthy. Thing for a body with these kinds of emotions to like get out somehow.

But I feel like the guy could have used some meditation classes, maybe could have used some therapy, , maybe could have used religion and maybe some of that was there and I don't see it. But I do think that just in terms of general self-care has to be included as a private

[00:52:18] Amit: regret here. Yeah, I think that's fair.

And self-care is a combination of how you treat your body and how you manage your stress. Yeah. Okay. So regrets, obviously the substance stuff that led to the end. The dissolution of the first marriage. Yeah. Violence against women. He did talk about it. Yeah.

[00:52:34] Michael: I mean this is in, in performance as we should be clear.

I didn't see any evidence of like actual, you know, domestic abuse or anything like that, or any violence, like no criminal record. Your character was principally involved with Robin. Once again, violence once again with a woman. for a while it seemed to be your artistic fate. Are those scenes difficult? I f I find 'em difficult.

I find they take a bit of a toll. They do. Yeah. You know, you go home feeling rotten, just absolutely rotten. It takes a while. Any other regrets?

[00:53:08] Amit: There's one this kind of funny one Okay. Said. Do you remember when Steve Corll left the office and they did this like rotating cast of Yeah. Of people and it ended up being James Spader for a while.

Yes. I remember that. But James Gandini was up to be one of those to be like the boss of LER Mifflin for a day. No shit. Yeah. But H B O wouldn't let him do it, even though this was after this Sopranos, they had him like queued up for another movie or something. Also, mostly just to not tarnish the image of Tony Soprano.

[00:53:36] Michael: That's hilarious. Yeah. All right. Category 11, good Dreams, bad Dreams. This is not about personal perception, but rather, does this person have a haunted look in the eye? Something that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, or unresolved trauma? Yes. Yes and yes. Thank you. Yes. Yes and yes. Oh my God, yes. This is as clear cut as it gets.

Yes. Category 12, cocktail coffee, cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. This may be a question of what kind of drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person, or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them, or most curious about, can I start?

Mm-hmm. , I'm going with what's most fun, but also access. I went. For a couple reasons. First of all, I think it's the least violent of the substances and he scares me. Like I would be intimidated hanging out with James Gandolfini. There's also a lightness and a humor to the other side of this guy. I think I would really enjoy that.

And I also think I would enjoy basking in the sort of like surprisingly high eq and we probably haven't talked about it enough. Like the guy's fucking funny. Yeah, he gets timing and, and he gets humor as relief and release and all that. And he's also got a great smile the way that like, that teeth will kind of glean, you know?

And then it's like fucking mischievous too. It's my kind of humor, so I wanna get high and laugh and it's that.

[00:55:01] Amit: Yeah, I don't wanna alter anything, so I want coffee. Okay. He has a lot of good perspectives on life, on fame. He's thoughtful, he's very

[00:55:10] Michael: thoughtful. What did you do after graduation from Rutgers? I came to New York and ran a nightclub.

What was the nightclub? It's called Private Eyes. It was just on 21st Street. I got a lot of, uh, great research stored up here from those years managing a nightclub cuz I was 21, 22. I got the job, didn't have a clue as to what I was doing, faked my way through it. But I saw, uh, the club was, uh, straight two nights a week, gay, two nights a week, and kind of everything else two nights a week.

So I spent a few years just watching people, just an amazement. And uh, so a lot of interesting things that I stored up.

[00:55:49] Amit: That's all I want is just that conversation. And there doesn't need to be a string of topics or anything in front of it, but I think you just let it flow with the conversations of the day or whatever's going through your head.

And I think this guy is gonna give a lot of meaningful insights. Yeah. That I'm just gonna take home and maybe I can feed some back to him, but I want it. I notal we're gonna be clothed, but I don't need, uh, yeah, I don't, it could be an a sauna. I

[00:56:11] Michael: mean it doesn't have to be Oh,

[00:56:12] Amit: sauna. A nice steam. Yeah. Yeah.

If it's a cold day. Yeah. A steam. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That definitely would. Towels, yes. ,

[00:56:21] Michael: I think we're there. The VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said it in varsity Blues. I don't want your life. Let's hash this out. Do you want James GFEs life? I really

[00:56:33] Amit: don't know. I've got a hints in both directions, but I'm a balanced man.

All

[00:56:36] Michael: right. Let's do it. Case four. Case against.

[00:56:39] Amit: Okay. So case four I, I think is blatantly obvious with your significance in cultural history. Yeah. And being a game changer in television and entertainment. But not only in the show that you acted in, but it's actually like was genre changing and when his show was nothing without him.

Yeah. So you could say he did it. He is significantly contributed. He had demons and it's unclear how, if there was resolution to them, but there was at least. Signs of progress. I'm just saying signs. Yeah. Uh, good relationship with his son. Yeah. Which we

[00:57:18] Michael: talked with his about. And with his colleagues, I would say with his peers.

Yes. I think he had friendships, like real friendships.

[00:57:23] Amit: Deep significant friendships. Travolta being one of them. Yeah. You know, Travolta talked about that, that James Gini was there for Travolta when his kid died. When his son died. Died. Yeah. Ca sat with him for a week. Yeah. He said, I'm not leaving until you tell me it's okay to leave.

And Travolta said that, you know, he did that for Gandolfini's family after Gini passed away. So deep, meaningful, connected friendships. It's a

[00:57:45] Michael: good one to call

[00:57:46] Amit: out. And obviously money, no

[00:57:48] Michael: issue for Gump. We don't have to think about that anymore. One less thing, case against Pretty clear, I think. How much he turned all this inward.

Yeah, whether it's self-loathing or just self-harm, I don't see a whole lot of evidence that the pain turned inward and the beating up of one's self ever really subsided. I also, I just can't emphasize enough how like, to me, uncomfortable and disorienting and confusing. It must have been to have been reasonably successful getting some parts in some important movies and then fucking rocket ship shot into outer space in terms of power, accolades, reverence.

I mean, you know, there was a story I think Steve Anza told about like going to an after party. He's like, I don't want to go into the v i p room. And he's like, well, you should probably go into the v i p room. And Gandolfini goes out there and he's getting accosted and kind of, you know, schlumps into the v i p room.

Like, okay, I, I get why I need to be in the v i p room. Now, I don't think he wanted to be in the v i p room.

[00:58:54] Amit: Yeah. You know, and nobody's calling him James or Jimmy. People are calling him Tony. Totally. Fans and, and even colleagues, people in the industry.

[00:59:01] Michael: Now, I've had to police myself throughout this conversation, not calling him Tony.

I think that there's also like, when that happens in your life that you were, you know, things were going along one path and then you've been transported to a whole different railroad track. I think the question of like, okay, how do I get inner peace? I believe that whatever spiritual or religious, you know, affiliation you have, it boils down to how can I be most helpful?

And on some level, I see this guy kind of struggling to be helpful. I think he's doing it, he's making documentaries about people with P T S D and he's generous to friends on set and he's trying to give back to the craft when he's making time for his family. But I do wonder if he's like, yeah, all of this is happening because I'm really good at getting fucking pissed off.

And that's what I'm famous for. What is the best use of me? Now he looks to me to be confused by that question. And if there's no answer to that, if there's no outlet for that, if there's no creative outlet, then you turn it inward to the point of like stressing your body out and that shit comes out sideways and it takes a toll and you drop dead of 51.

I mean, I'm not, not trying to necessarily explain his death, but that's what I see. I wouldn't want to be so befuddled and confused. I feel like the links you have to go to explain what has happened to you in your life just looks

[01:00:16] Amit: hard. You know, we talk about the staircase a lot. Is it better to die on the upward staircase than to die later on a downward one?

And it seems like he was well into his reckoning. He was starting his next stage of an acting career, new family. He was directionally seemed to be okay. You know, like I said, don't wanna die at 51. No question. That's a deal breaker over. Yeah, but I'm gonna take that out cause we're gonna play the predestination game.

Okay. It was rough and rocky I think with the abuses and the love life at first. But the significance that he played, the way he made his way into a lot of hearts. Not just viewing audience, but contemporaries his own family, insignificant. Like this is a significant acting career for as short-lived as it was.

Yes. And it did change the character actor. Yeah. On television, which does have a very, very large unfolding. Impact on society as a whole. Yeah. And that nothing is clear and that things have to be worked through him in the psychiatrist's office is a very important, pivotal moment in American television.

Yeah. Which really, I think can reverberate through the future of mental health in America. So the contribution, yeah, the contribution, the significance. I mean, life was interesting. He w I, I don't think I would've dealt with the fame the same way he did. I probably would've slurped it up a little bit more, but I don't mind it.

It's not a 90%. Yes. And it may not even be a 60% Yes. But it's a yes. I want your life. James got Noni. I

[01:01:59] Michael: don't Everything you said I agree with even more than that. There's a lot to be learned here and a lot to be admired. I'm not even sure I could tell you exactly why I'm going. No, Amit. Maybe it is the premature death.

I think more than anything though, I mean, I do think that this guy worked a lot at self-awareness and thinking about like, what are my gifts? What does the world want from me? How do I give back? And I think he really, really tried. But I also feel like that stands in contrast to what brought him there in the first place.

And being a part of entertainment as violence, which is not something that I would say I have like a moral issue with. But I think that like the toll, the compromise it took from him, the price he paid for being able to do that. I guess if I add it all up, I just see a little too much pain here, so

[01:02:53] Amit: I'm going no.

[01:02:56] Michael: So Amit, I think we're here. We're at the Pearl Gates before you take us out. I think it's worth pointing out that James Gandini himself was once asked about the pearly gates. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

Take over for a while. I'll be right back. . No, no, no, no, no. That's it. No, that's it. That's it. No, no, no. You dare not change it. It's, it's too good. It's too good. Think of the possibility, assuming Amit, that God does not let you take over for a while. You're at the front gates meeting St. Peter. You have an opportunity to make the pitch for why you should be let in the floor Is yours.

Same Peter

[01:03:41] Amit: Italian. Okay, so let me talk about Father. It was talked about, about my own son and the relationship I had with him. Had I had more time with my daughter, it would've been the same. I was a father to America. I was a father on America's screen, and what I brought that had never been brought before was obvious vulnerability.

This is a trait that you don't see in fathers and you don't see in powerful men. And I think I was one of the first to kind of bring that out. Power, toughness, complexity, and a deep, soft heart can coexist and it needs to coexist. Maybe we're at the stage in life and in our evolution that it's really, really hard to work through that, but perhaps I'm the one that planted the seed to bring more vulnerability into power, to bring more vulnerability into toughness, to bring more vulnerability into conflict.

And I think that's what. I left on this Earth. That message does not always come through well in books and on billboards and in sermons, but coming through on the most successful television show of a quarter century, that message is gonna stick. Let me in.

[01:05:04] Michael: Famous and gravy listeners, before you leave today, I have two things for you. First of all, thank you so much to Michael Warburton. I highly recommend following him on Twitter at Michael Warberg 17. You can find him also on ck. His sub column is excellent. It's called so far. So on both Twitter and ck, you can find his link to buy me a cup of coffee if you want to support his.

The second thing is that if you are interested in participating in our opening quiz, send an email to Hello famous and gravy.com. All you need to do is send an email, say, Hey, I'd like to participate in your quiz. It usually only takes about five or 10 minutes to record, and it's a lot of fun, and so that's it.

Thank you for listening to this episode. If you're enjoying our show, please tell your friends. You can find us on Twitter at Famous En Gravy. We also have a newsletter, which you can sign up for on our website, famous en gravy.com. Famous en Gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang.

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