“Junior” Soprano wasn’t the most humane character on television during the years The Sopranos helped usher in the so-called “Golden Age of Television.” But the actor who played Junior, Dominic Chianese, knows a humane gesture when he sees one. Chianese was delighted to be among his old castmates for the 20th Anniversary celebration of The Sopranos, courtesy of HBO.
Chianese told The Hollywood Reporter: “It’s a very humane thing for HBO to do, bringing us together. We really liked each other. We worked as an ensemble, and any actor will tell you that in the theater and entertainment, our art form is so collaborative that it’s like a family. It’s like a family.”
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The great missing piece, of course, was the late James Gandolfini, who played the enigmatic Tony Soprano with such a brilliant mix of brutality and sensitivity. But the cast, like the mob crew it once portrayed, simply carried on when one of theirs goes missing. That’s just how it is. Besides cast members like Chianese and Jamie-Lynn Sigler, iconic Sopranos writers David Chase and Terence Winter were there — they helped build the great Sopranos characters before creating Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire, respectively.
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