Bada bing, bada increase — James Gandolfini’s son is all grown up.
Now, Michael Gandolfini, 25, is following in his late father’s footsteps, appearing within the new movie “Warfare.”
The star lately bought candid on his upbringing and watching James, who died in 2013 at 51 from a coronary heart assault, play Tony Soprano on the hit present “The Sopranos.”
“When I’d visit him on the ‘Sopranos’ set, I’d hang out in his trailer. I had my own little drawer of toys and things to keep me occupied. My parents didn’t want me outside on set, exposed to the show’s violence and language,” Gandolfini, whose mother is movie producer Marcy Wudarski, informed “The Wall Street Journal” in an interview printed on Tuesday.
After all, the actor already had a imaginative and prescient of filmmaking in his head and “wanted to be a part of it.”
“Being excluded on set drove me crazy. My parents were protective and wanted me to enjoy being a kid. From my father’s perspective, if I was going to follow him into the business, he wanted me to discover acting on my own,” Gandolfini added.
The “Beau Is Afraid” alum mirrored on his early years and defined that being a performer was at all times in his blood.
“I wasn’t into sports when I was really young,” said Gandolfini. “Lots of kids I knew played football or soccer. I just wanted to create imaginative worlds, act out stories I made up with friends and tape them using my camcorder. Pretending was what calmed me.”
Following his dad and mom’ divorce, James and Wudarski “remained close.”
“Friends of the family stepped in to help raise me when my dad was away,” Gandolfini famous, “and I enjoyed being home alone. I could write plays and perform them for my dad later.”
By the point he turned 12, Gandolfini and his mother headed for Los Angeles.
“She loved L.A., and we wanted a change from the gray, cold weather,” he mirrored. “We lived in Studio City and Encino, which visually reminded me of suburban New Jersey. In middle school, I started playing ice hockey and football.”
“The Sopranos” ran for six seasons from 1999 to 2007 on HBO.
Solely a yr after his son and ex-wife relocated, tragedy struck when James instantly handed away.
“When I was 13, my dad died of a heart attack, at age 51, while we were in Italy,” Gandolfini shared. “His death was a heavy blow.”
In 2021, the actor bought to honor his dad by portraying a younger Tony Soprano in “The Sopranos” prequel, “The Many Saints of Newark.”
“The Many Saints of Newark was a transformative role,” Gandolfini recalled. “To play Tony as a teen, I had to get a full sense of him, but I’d never watched an episode of “The Sopranos.” Going by way of the sequence to prep wasn’t like watching residence films. Tony was a job, and there have been many layers to what my dad was doing with the character.”
Whereas selling the prequel, Gandolfini talked about his father not being round to see his work.
“I had known there isn’t a world where I’m going to make my dad proud — because I can’t,” he stated to the WSJ Journal. “I understand that. But I wanted to make David proud, and I wanted to make my fellow actors proud and learn as much as I can — that was a goal I could set.”
Throughout his latest interview with the outlet, Gandolfini merely described his dad as “goofy, incredibly humble and sensitive.”
