The Sopranos, despite being on the whole quite a dark, serious drama, has its comedic injections, especially when it concerns Michael Imperioli. One moment, which was supposed to be sober, ended up so funny it took 12 takes to get right.
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Anyone who has watched The Sopranos knows just how incredible it is. The writing, pacing, characters, and plot are almost unmatched by any other TV show. There is a suitable mix of gritty drama, foolish lighthearted moments, love, and hatred. The casting is, without a doubt, some of the strongest out there.
During a hard moment in The Sopranos, a funeral is being held for Livia Soprano. Standing around the grave, the characters are asked to say something nice about her at her death. Michael Imperioli looked back at why they had to shoot the Sopranos scene 12 times.
"Janice [Aida Turturro] wanted everybody to say something about her," Imperioli said, "and [my character] said something about, some kind of esoteric thing about no two people are the same." In a typical Christopher Moltisant way, he doesn't know when to stop talking though, and let his mind wander.
"They say, there's no two people on earth exactly the same. No two faces, no two sets of fingerprints. But do they know that for sure? Because they would have to get everybody together in one huge space, and obviously that's not possible even with computers."
The stupidity of what he was saying while they all stood around the grave of one of The Sopranos cast cracked up the rest of them, requiring the scene to be reshot 12 times.
A Big Family On The Set Of The Sopranos
According to Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa in their interview, the crew and cast became a family during the run of The Sopranos. "You're with these people," Schirripa said. "They become honestly like a family. Marriages, babies, divorces, so you, you're all together."
Despite the often dark themes of the show, off-camera, it was lighthearted. "Though there was some heavy times, there also was a lot of fun times. 'The Sopranos' happens to be a very, very funny show", they remembered.
Whatever they were doing on The Sopranos, it worked. There's never been anything quite like it.
