Turning to acting after a long prison stint, Sirico became a key part of one of the greatest crime dramas of all time
Born Gennaro Anthony Sirico Jr. in 1942, Sirico spent the first 30 years of his life building up an arrest record nearly as impressive as his eventual acting resumé, ultimately being arrested 28 times on a variety of charges, and serving a total of
five years of prison time. During his last stint in prison, he encountered a group called The Theater Of The Forgotten, former convicts turn actors who toured prisons. “It just hit me. I said, ‘I can do that.’ And when I got out I called someone who had been a friend of mine for many years, Richie Castellano, who had played Fat Clemenza inAfter Castellano helped Sirico get his first role , he began steadily working, and didn’t really stop for the next several decades.
from this period paint a picture of the course of his career: Names like “Tough Guy,” “Jacko,” and “Rocco” dot his resumé—the latter in Allen’sAdvertisement Sirico’s career changed forever, though, in 1999, when—after four long auditions, and a failed shot at the role of Junior Sopranothat no one, at the time, realized would become one of the most influential shows of its generation. As Paulie Walnuts, Sirico frequently got to walk the line betweendarker and lighter selves; delivering the funniest lines of an episode one minute, and brutal menace the next.
”—and especially in his relationship with Michael Imperioli’s Christopher—Sirico consistently demonstrated that an absurd, often goofy gangster was never the same thing as agangster; Sirico’s ability to project an almost child-like sense of aggrievement at the world only served to highlight the moments when that same sensibility”; his list of roles afterward are dotted with parts paying homage to his most famous job.
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