Janice Soprano Baccalieri is a fictional character in the HBO television drama series The Sopranos and in the film The Many Saints of Newark. She is the eldest sibling of the show's protagonist, Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini). On the show, she is portrayed by Aida Turturro, and a young Janice appears in flashbacks portrayed by Madeline Blue and Juliet Fox. Alexandra Intrator portrays a young Janice Soprano in the 2021 prequel film, The Many Saints of Newark.
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Background
Presented as the oldest child of mobster Johnny Boy Soprano and Livia Soprano in a household financed by crime; Janice grew complacent about her family's criminal ties. She is portrayed as having a very callous and rebellious nature.
In the show, after graduating from Sacred Heart High School, Janice joined an ashram in Venice, Los Angeles, the character adopting the name Parvati Wasatch. Janice, under her new name, traveled across Europe, staying in Paris, France, and Sri Lanka, and married a Québécois man named Eugène. In the series, the couple had a son named Harpo "Hal" named after the song "Harpo's Blues" by Phoebe Snow. Eugène later took him back to Montreal and Janice unsuccessfully tried to petition the State Department to have him returned to her.
She worked as a furniture mover and at an espresso bar in Olympia, Washington before finally moving back to New Jersey permanently. After returning to New Jersey Janice is shown to re-invent herself from an aging rebel to an upscale, materialistic, North Jersey Italian housewife.
Janice is portrayed as a chronic malingerer, with the people around her often holding the opinion she is lazy and has no work ethic, filing for disability benefits in Washington for alleged carpal tunnel syndrome, and using her claim of newly contracted Epstein–Barr to excuse herself from her household duties.
Her relationship with Tony is often shown to be strained in nature, as he still holds her responsible for abandoning the family and leaving him to deal with their abusive mother alone.
Biography
In season two, Janice returns to Newark, New Jersey, ostensibly to take care of her sick mother. Her high school boyfriend, Richie Aprile (David Proval), is a DiMeo crime family capo who is released from prison around the same time. When Tony and Richie begin feuding, Janice exacerbates the situation by telling Richie that he is being unfairly treated and even suggests making a move against Tony. Richie is initially reluctant to do so.
Richie causes problems for Tony that are only made more complicated by his engagement to Janice. Tony is unhappy with the engagement, and both Janice and Richie flaunt their status to Tony by planning an extravagant wedding and putting an offer on an expensive house in Short Hills, New Jersey despite Richie still having a no-show job working as a fishmonger.
Tony orders Richie killed after Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) informs him of Richie's plan to "move against him". After an incident of domestic violence in which Richie punches her in the face, Janice shoots and kills Richie and calls on her brother to dispose of the body. She then moves back to Seattle and becomes briefly engaged to a 19-year-old.
In season three, Janice returns to New Jersey following the death of her mother. After Livia's death, Janice emotionally blackmails Tony and Barbara into holding a service after her death. She becomes obsessed with acquiring her mother's valuable record collection, which Livia gave to her nurse, Svetlana (Alla Kliouka Schaffer). Janice, feeling that she should rightfully have the records, absconds with Svetlana's prosthetic leg. She tells Svetlana that the leg will not be returned until she receives the records. Svetlana has friends connected with the Russian Mafia who physically assault Janice until she reveals the location of the leg.
Tony visits her at the hospital and angrily tells her that since she has been assaulted, he is now forced to retaliate and risk facing a war with the Russians or else lose respect. After the assault against her, she briefly becomes a born-again Christian. Janice's next phase is marked by a brief interest in a Christian music career, as well as an equally brief live-in relationship with her narcoleptic boyfriend, Aaron Arkaway (Turk Pipkin).
In season four, after the death of Jackie Aprile Jr. (Jason Cerbone), Janice embarks on a clandestine relationship with Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano), while he was is in a relationship with Jackie's mother Rosalie Aprile (Sharon Angela). With the help of her feminist therapist, Janice soon reaches the conclusion that her affair with Ralph is a mistake. After Karen's death in a car accident, Ralph uses the event as an excuse to end his relationship with Rosalie, he happily tells her that he is no longer seeing Rosalie Aprile and plans to move in with her, Janice responds by flying into a rage, pushing him down a flight of stairs and screaming at him to leave. Sometime later, Tony asks Janice about Ralph's bizarre sexual fetishes, of which he had recently become aware. She refuses to tell him anything at first, ostensibly to protect Ralph's privacy. When Tony offers her money, however, she immediately tells him everything he wants to know.