This weekend, listen to a collection of narrated articles from around The New York Times, read aloud by the reporters who wrote them.
When Michael Gandolfini was filming his role in “The Many Saints of Newark,” a period crime drama that casts him as a precocious teenage troublemaker named Tony Soprano, he was having trouble sleeping and would stay up late at night, working on his scenes for the next day.
Sometimes he would reflect on the motivations of his character, whose loyalty is torn between two paternal figures: his frequently absent father, a New Jersey gangster named Johnny Boy; and the film’s protagonist, a charismatic mobster named Dickie Moltisanti.
In his efforts to get inside his character, Gandolfini would try to identify with Tony’s desire to please both men. He would find himself drawn back to Johnny Boy and repeat the wish to himself like a mantra.
As Gandolfini recalled recently, “I was always like, ‘I want to make my dad proud. I want to make my dad proud.’”
It didn’t take a psychiatrist to decipher what it all meant. Gandolfini is the son of the actor James Gandolfini, who played the menacing but undeniably engrossing Mafia boss Tony Soprano for six seasons on the revered HBO series “The Sopranos,” and who died suddenly of a heart attack at age 51 in 2013.
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Written and narrated by Dave Philipps
Almost every morning for five years, First Lt. Sukhbir Toor has pulled on the uniform of the United States Marine Corps. Last week, he…
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This weekend, listen to a collection of narrated articles from around The New York Times, read aloud by the reporters who wrote them.
When Michael Gandolfini was filming his role in “The Many Saints of Newark,” a period crime drama that casts him as a precocious teenage troublemaker named Tony Soprano, he was having trouble sleeping and would stay up late at night, working on his scenes for the next day.
Sometimes he would reflect on the motivations of his character, whose loyalty is torn between two paternal figures: his frequently absent father, a New Jersey gangster named Johnny Boy; and the film’s protagonist, a charismatic mobster named Dickie Moltisanti.
In his efforts to get inside his character, Gandolfini would try to identify with Tony’s desire to please both men. He would find himself drawn back to Johnny Boy and repeat the wish to himself like a mantra.
As Gandolfini recalled recently, “I was always like, ‘I want to make my dad proud. I want to make my dad proud.’”
It didn’t take a psychiatrist to decipher what it all meant. Gandolfini is the son of the actor James Gandolfini, who played the menacing but undeniably engrossing Mafia boss Tony Soprano for six seasons on the revered HBO series “The Sopranos,” and who died suddenly of a heart attack at age 51 in 2013.
◆ ◆ ◆
Written and narrated by Dave Philipps
Almost every morning for five years, First Lt. Sukhbir Toor has pulled on the uniform of the United States Marine Corps. Last week, he…
