I love doing theaters, cracking people up, hearing them physically roll in the aisles. But we need to get serious. These are serious times. No joke. No joke.
— James Gandolfini
'The Sopranos' all came down to the writing. I wouldn't have been on for as long as I was if the writing weren't so good.
I dabbled a little bit in acting in high school, and then I forgot about it completely. And then at about 25 I went to a class. I don't think anybody in my family thought it was an intelligent choice. I don't think anybody thought I'd succeed, which is understandable. I think they were just happy that I was doing something.
I like dark places.
I want nothing to do with privilege.
Standing in public in other people's clothes, pretending to be someone else. It's a strange way for a grown man to make a living.
Actors will say, 'My character wouldn't say that.' Who said it was your character?
Both my mother and father were very supportive of any career move any of us wanted to make.
You know, all writers are vampires and they'll look around and they watch you when you're not even thinking they're watching you and they'll slip stuff in.
I'm an actor... I do a job and I go home. Why are you interested in me? You don't ask a truck driver about his job.
I'm an angry guy.
Putting somebody else's pants on and pretending to be somebody else is occasionally, as you grow older, horrifying.
I like idiotic comedies.
I find it hard to relax. I live in New York.
I don't think I will do a Mafia character again. I want to get away from the violence a little bit, because it is starting to bother me personally.
I'm not a big, three-hour-play, Ibsen-revival kind of man.
Good writing will bring you to places you don't even expect sometimes.
I was voted best-looking kid in high school but, as you can see, things changed. I used to say I was a 260 pound Woody Allen. You can make that 295 pound now.
All writers are vampires.
I just don't think I'm that interesting. I don't think what I have to say is that interesting. To hear me go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, who... cares?
What they say about TV shows is true. You're really a family. You laugh, you fight, you get close, you know? Movies are shorter. They're over quicker. You don't form the same bonds.
People don't know and they shouldn't know that you work incredibly hard as an actor.
I'd love to live in New Orleans. I love the freedom of it - for good and for bad.
Part of the fun of acting is the research, finding out about other people.
I have nothing but respect for HBO.
I love hearing people laugh.
It is a dark, dark world. If you're going to be in a dark world, I can't think of any better one to be in. I still think I'm very lucky to be in it.
I lost 30 pounds to play my character in 'The Mexican', but people don't take to skinny mafia men, and I don't feel right when I'm thin.
I've been very lucky, considering what I look like and what I do.
