James Gandolfini: Tribute to a Friend

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1

He was a searcher, really.

He was looking for something

he didn't have.

I don't think he knew

how valuable he was

to other people,

how much what he did

for them mattered.

He was a good man.

He just happened to be

a brilliant, brilliant actor.

He just made you feel like

things were gonna be okay.

If he was around, he just did.

Jimmy had that combination

of being very down to earth

and also larger than life.

- You did a scene with

- Jimmy Gandolfini

and you walked away

a better actor.

He was a reluctant...

a reluctant star.

He was so grateful

for his good luck,

for his chance to do

something for people.

You can't go out and say

we lost Tony Soprano.

We didn't lose Tony Soprano.

We lost James Gandolfini.

Whatever the opposite

of bullshit is,

that's what I think

Jimmy Gandolfini was searching for.

All right, well, we have

our breaking news now.

We can confirm the death

of James Gandolfini,

the actor best known,

of course, for his role

in "The Sopranos"

as Tony Soprano.

HBO is confirming that he died

while on vacation

in Rome, Italy...

I was taking a nap and a friend came up

to my room and said,

"You gotta wake up,

gotta wake up.

Jim Gandolfini died. "

And I wasn't entirely sure

I was awake,

I didn't know

what had happened.

I couldn't make sense of it.

I couldn't believe it.

I refused to believe it.

"Who told you this?"

It just... it didn't

make sense to me.

Um, I...

somehow was under

the mistaken impression

that this guy

was indestructible.

Then I just sat on that chair

for days, you know.

Yeah, that was bad.

A lot of phone calls

trying to...

hopefully find out

if it was a rumor,

you know.

But it wasn't.

Well, you know

your time has come

And you're sorry

for what you've done

You should have never been

playing with a gun

In those

complicated shadows...

The first time

I actually met him, I...

you know, he came in to read.

He was one of the actors

who came in to read.

And, you know, we basically

just shook hands.

He sat down and he...

he read.

And then he bolted

in the middle of it.

He left.

He said, "Uh-uh,

this isn't doing...

I'm not doing this right.

This is not good. "

After he finally read

the whole thing all the way through,

it was pretty clear

that he was the guy.

Mr. Soprano?

Ahem. Yeah.

It had been cast already

and they said,

"It was this guy,

Jim Gandolfini. "

- That's perfect.

- You getting that?

I guess I first met him

at the first read-through.

We became a family

from that day,

from the first

read-through.

And then we went from there.

We shot the pilot

in August of 1997.

It was great and everybody

had a nice time

and felt that they were

working on something really good.

But in this business

a lot of times

when you feel like you're working

on something really good,

that's usually... it means

that, like, nobody's ever going to see it.

I did not think it would be a big thing.

Not in the least.

Oddly, I had much

more confidence than David

or anybody else did,

including Jim.

I think they were fairly pessimistic

about the show.

I did the screening

and my friends came

and, you know, I've done this

before with people.

And I could see that people

really were responding to it.

They were laughing a lot,

more than I thought they would.

I began to think then

we had something,

but I never thought

it would succeed with...

you know, in the way

that it did.

I never had that dream,

that notion,

that inkling, anything.

You gave a f***ing cousin Cartier dinner

rings and you give me a vibrating chair?

He was exciting to work with.

He had a great effect.

There was an energy or something that came

from him.

Oh, Ma, you gotta stop!

You gotta stop with this...

this black poison cloud all the time,

'cause I can't take it anymore.

Oh, poor you!

We really laughed our fool heads off

on that set.

He and Nancy Marchand...

this is going back to the beginning...

would make each other laugh.

She was a ferociously

funny woman.

Not even gonna...

gonna what?

What the f*** are you doing?

- Not even gonna... gonna...

Kiss me.

Hit me.

No, kiss me.

- I know. I am.

- Kiss me.

All my greatest

memories involve

all of us being

out of control laughing.

And Jim was always

at the heart of it.

- Do I say something?

- "What?"

That's a tough one.

Working on that show

was like walking down the street

and hanging out on the corner

with your friends.

It was like that every day.

There was a scene

that was in the third season

when he calls me

to go and help him

and I come in

with a hunting outfit.

The Pine Barrens episode.

- Did you call Bobby?

- He's on his way.

And he said,

"You better know how to make me laugh

tomorrow morning,"

because he had to...

I had to walk in

with this hunting outfit,

which he had already seen,

and I had to be funny.

So I told the prop guy,

I said, "Listen,

do you have any d*ldos?"

You know.

And he found me the biggest dildo...

looked like an Italian bread.

And when I come into that room,

which is the scene you see,

I'm off camera and you see Jim

basically fall over

laughing on the counter.

And you could almost catch

Dominic Chianese crack a smile.

That was a funny scene.

We had a lot of laughs

that day.

They all bust my balls.

They bust my balls.

I remember telling

a bunch of reporters one time

"This guy holds up the show.

If this show is grand,

it's because of James Gandolfini. "

And everybody in the cast

understood what I meant.

Doing a show like that...

do you know how much work it is?

For him, for a lead

on any of these shows

these people worked,

they're in it all the time.

And I never saw anyone work

so hard at each scene,

analyzing it, working on it.

I find it to be tremendous,

the trouble he's gotten himself into.

I'm not trying to be difficult.

Out of the hard work

came something transcendent.

It doesn't look like hard work.

It looks like magic.

Where is she?

Where the f*** is she?

Where is she?!

In those moments when you're going,

you're going all the way.

Going all the way.

We're gonna empty ourselves.

No, please,

don't make me do it.

I can't do it.

I can't do it.

All right.

- I can't!

- All right, all right.

- I can't do it.

- I'm gonna take care of it.

He did that all the time.

- He made you do it.

- All right.

Made you wanna do it.

Like a sculptor

works in marble,

his raw material was emotion.

And he was just really good

with working with it.

He did things with a blink.

He could play a scene

with his eyes

and you knew exactly what the hell

his character was going through.

When you got eyes like that,

you know something's special

burning inside.

The defining emotion,

I guess, about him

or about his eyes

was kind of sadness.

That's why when he laughed

or smiled, it was so powerful.

I don't think anybody else

could have played Tony Soprano

and made him that character.

I mean, it's... so much

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