The Sopranos celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, 17 years after the hit TV show wrapped up on our screens.
After six seasons and 21 Emmy Awards, the mobster series that turned James Gandolfini and Edie Falco into household names, is still as beloved as ever.
One of the stars of the crime drama, Steven Van Zandt, tells 9honey Celebrity he has only good memories of being part of the show, calling the experience “a huge gift”.
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The musician, who was previously best known for his work with Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, was approached by The Sopranos creator David Chase to be part of the series as Silvio Dante, Tony Soprano’s consigliere.
“The guy’s just amazing … to come to a guy who’d never acted before and say, ‘You’re an actor but you don’t know it yet’ – what a wonderful gift, right?,” Van Zandt tells 9honey Celebrity in London.
“You’re suddenly in the greatest acting class ever, with all these amazing people – you do a scene with Jimmy Gandolfini, you walk away a better actor.”
Van Zandt says the actors on the show were of such a high quality he was worried how they’d react to a musician walking onto their set.
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“They all really helped me,” he tells 9honey Celebrity.
“There was no negative attitudes about, ‘He hasn’t paid his dues as an actor’ because I was worried about that, ‘Here comes half a hippie guitar player off the street’. I’m like, are they gonna be resentful?”
“That’s why I said to David Chase early on, ‘I don’t want to take an actor’s job’ and that’s why he wrote the part in that didn’t exist, so that I wouldn’t be taking anybody’s job.
“But they all had this great respect for my other life, for my past life and so it worked out great.”
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Van Zandt, who is currently starring in the documentary Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band taking fans behind-the-scenes of the band’s latest world tour, certainly caught the acting bug and is hoping to take on more acting work after the current tour wraps up.
“I do miss it and I want to do it some more,” he says.
But he’s not willing to give up life as a musician to be a full-time actor.
“I don’t need to do anything full-time, because – I mean, if it ends up going that way, that’s fine – but I like doing different things,” the 73-year-old tells 9honey Celebrity.
The rock star has indeed done many different things over the decades while juggling his musical commitments, including running a radio station, charity work and Broadway musical Quasimodo.
“Yeah, I’ve done a couple of things that I really wanted to do and my Broadway show is still my proudest moment I think, as far as my own work,” Van Zandt tells 9honey Celebrity.
“I realised at that moment, this is what I was born to do … I never knew it till that moment because I loved the live aspect – I love producing a live show first of all, but also I love all the different aspects of it.”
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“Yes, music is part of it, but I wrote the show, so there’s the script, there’s the set, there’s the production, the choreography, the wardrobe, I just love it all,” he says.
“So I wish I could do that more often. I may go through life and have only done it once, which is ironic, since it’s the thing I really love the most, I must say.”
Van Zandt’s wife, Maureen Van Zandt (who also played his wife in The Sopranos), inspired his theatre work.
“My wife’s always been into it – she’s a ballet dancer so she was the one who got me into going to those wonderful theatres in the first place, as opposed to the rock and roll venues that we play coming up, which is all dives and bars and ripped up seats,” he laughs.
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“Walking into the Metropolitan Opera House for the first time blows your mind.”
“There’s something magical about the Broadway thing,” he tells 9honey Celebrity.
Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band is available to stream on Disney+ now.
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