'The Sopranos' creator David Chase remembers 'Paulie Walnuts' actor Tony Sirico in an interview following his death: 'He made it his own'
My memory’s not so great. I don’t remember his audition. He read for Junior, And I do recall the phone call where I said, “You’re not Junior, but I have this other idea.” But I’m pretty sure he only had one line in the pilot, where Tony’s at the garbage dump and Paulie’s hitting golf balls and says, “T! Dick’s looking for you!” The reason that’s interesting to me, is that from such an inauspicious beginnings came such a great character.
There were actors on the show like Jim Gandolfini who didn’t like being confused with their characters. But Tony always seemed to take pleasure from being associated with Paulie. Is that fair? I’m really gonna miss that guy. I hadn’t seen him in a long time. I keep picturing him in the afterlife, which never happens to me with other people. And I see him making other dead people laugh, or be astounded just watching him, in his track suit. Just great.Isn’t that incredible? Like, [Paulie] lost his shoe in the woods, or he got the painting of Tony with the horse retouched to be a general. Okay, let’s say the writing was good there, just for the sake of argument.
You’ve said that Tony liked to function as a kind of second director in scenes, telling the other actors where to go.A lot of actors, if they attempted to do such a thing on your set, would not be allowed to get away with it. Yet you tell that story with such fondness. Was there something about Tony that gave him more latitude with that kind of thing?
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