Anthony John Soprano, Sr., portrayed by James Gandolfini, is a fictional character and the protagonist of the HBO crime drama television series The Sopranos. He is a member of the Italian-American Mafia and, later in the series, becomes the boss of the fictional DiMeo crime family of North Jersey. The character was created by Sopranos creator and showrunner David Chase, who was also largely responsible for the character's story arc throughout the series.
Gandolfini was cast in the role ahead of other actors, including Steven Van Zandt and Michael Rispoli. The character is loosely based on stories from and about an assortment of real-life Mafia figures, including New Jersey mobsters Ruggerio "Richie the Boot" Boiardo, boss of the Genovese crime family New Jersey faction, Vincent "Vinny Ocean" Palermo, a former caporegime and de facto boss of the DeCavalcante crime family and boss Sam DeCavalcante. Bobby Boriello and Mark Damiano II portrayed the character as a child in one episode each and Danny Petrillo played the character as a teenager in three episodes. William Ludwig portrayed him as a child and Gandolfini's son Michael portrayed him as a teenager in the 2021 prequel film The Many Saints of Newark.
In the first season, Tony is a capo and serves as a key ally for ailing acting boss Giacomo "Jackie" Aprile in the DiMeo family. Between the first and second seasons, he is promoted to acting underboss and then official underboss, a position he retains until the sixth season; his uncle Corrado "Junior" Soprano is the acting boss up until early in the sixth season, but actual power is retained by Tony. Throughout the series, Tony struggles to balance the conflicting needs of his family—wife Carmela, daughter Meadow, son A.J. and mother Livia—with those of the Mafia. He displays behavior traits characteristic of a violent sociopath, struggles with depression and is prone to panic attacks. From the pilot episode, he seeks treatment from Dr. Jennifer Melfi (a character Chase modeled after his own psychiatrist) and remains in therapy on and off until the penultimate episode of the series.
Both the character Tony Soprano, and Gandolfini's performance, have garnered universal critical acclaim and is often cited as one of the greatest and most influential characters in television history. For his portrayal of the character, Gandolfini won three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, three Actor Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama.
Contents
Casting
James Gandolfini was invited to audition for the part of Tony Soprano after casting director Susan Fitzgerald saw a short clip of his performance in the 1993 film True Romance, ultimately receiving the role ahead of several other actors due to his physically large stature and acting abilities.
Anthony LaPaglia was initially interested in the role but, due to a Broadway production and the decision not to go with Fox, he was not considered further. Series creator David Chase invited Steven Van Zandt, a guitarist in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, to audition for the role of Tony. Van Zandt, who had never acted before, felt that the role should go to an experienced actor, so Chase wrote him into a part that did not exist—as Silvio Dante. Michael Rispoli, who eventually played Jackie Aprile, was also very close to being cast as Tony.
In the pilot, Tony was named Tommy—an homage to the character played by James Cagney in The Public Enemy, Tom Powers, but the clearance on naming the character Tom was never given. The name "Tony Soprano" came from a family friend of Chase's named Toby Soprano.
As methods to focus anger into his performances, Gandolfini said he would deliberately hit himself on the head, stay up all night to evoke the desired reaction, drink several cups of coffee or walk around with a rock in his shoe.
Fictional character biography
Early life
Tony Soprano was born in 1959 (1955 in The Many Saints of Newark), the second child and only son of Livia and Johnny Soprano. His father was a caporegime in the DiMeo crime family. Tony grew up living with his parents and two sisters, Janice and Barbara, in the old First Ward neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey. Tony's paternal grandfather, Corrado Soprano, was from Avellino, a city in the Campania region of Southern Italy, and immigrated to the United States in 1911. He was a master stonemason who helped to build a church in Tony's old neighborhood.
In adulthood, Tony recalls how Johnny used Janice as a cover for attending meetings with criminal associates at a children's amusement park, leading him to assume she was his father's favorite child. In therapy, when asked to remember happy childhood memories about his mother, Tony struggles to come up with any; he later describes his mother as a cruel, joyless woman who wore his father down "to a little nub" and who seemed to delight in threatening her children.
Tony has a troubled relationship with Janice, due to her flighty and impulsive nature, which leads to her constantly relying on him for financial and emotional support. Their bond is further complicated in adulthood when she murders her boyfriend, Richie Aprile, one of Tony's subordinates, for striking her during a domestic dispute, leading to her calling on Tony for assistance in disposing of his body.
In high school, Tony met his future wife, Carmela DeAngelis, and became friends with Artie Bucco and Davey Scatino. He was also close to his maternal cousin Tony Blundetto. Their mutual relatives called them Tony-Uncle-Al and Tony-Uncle-Johnny (after their fathers) to tell them apart, although Tony Soprano and his friends would take to calling Blundetto "Tony B". The two Tonys spent summers at the farm of their uncle Pat Blundetto, a former DiMeo soldier allowed to retire from the Mafia due to chronic illness.
When they were in their early twenties, Tony Blundetto was arrested for his part in a hijacking; Tony Soprano was supposed to join him on the job but failed to appear because of a panic attack after an argument with his mother, which resulted in his blacking out and suffering a head injury. For years after, Tony Soprano claimed that he had sustained the injury during a mugging, a story he maintained to allay his guilt. As a young adult, he attended Seton Hall University for a semester and a half before dropping out to pursue a life of crime.
Narrated killings committed by Tony Soprano
Tony personally committed eight murders during the show. As a boss, he was responsible for the deaths of others killed on his orders. The eight known murders, all explicitly presented onscreen, were:
As a father
Tony lives in North Caldwell, New Jersey with his wife and two children: Meadow Soprano and Anthony (A.J.) Soprano. He also treats Christopher Moltisanti, his wife's first cousin once removed, as a son in many ways.
Tony is often portrayed as a loving father—he attends his children's sporting events regularly and does all he can to ensure they have luxuries and opportunities. He hopes that both his children will escape the life of crime he has led. Tony takes great pride in Meadow's achievements. In Season 1, he is moved to tears by her performance at a choir recital. He often tells people about her aspiration to become a pediatrician.
He also sometimes alienates his children with his behavior. He has always tried to conceal his criminal life from them—something that Meadow saw through early on and A.J. also realizes with guidance from his sister.
Tony's over-protectiveness of Meadow leads to feuds between them on several occasions. For example, her first boyfriend at college, Noah Tannenbaum, is of black and Jewish ancestry and Tony's dislike of him leads him to try to drive him away. Meadow learns of her father's actions and does not speak to him for several months, eventually reconciling at Christmas in 2001.
Meadow's next boyfriend is Jackie Aprile Jr., the son of Tony's old friend, the late Jackie Aprile Sr. Tony had promised Jackie Jr.'s father that he would keep his son out of the Mafia life. Tony is initially pleased with the relationship, believing Jackie to be a hard-working pre-med student from a good family. However, since Jackie's uncle Richie Aprile's release from prison and subsequent death, Tony realizes that Jackie had become more involved in the Mafia when he sees him at strip clubs and a casino.
He eventually beats Jackie up to warn him about abusing his daughter's feelings and confiscates his gun. Tony begins seeing much of himself and his treatment of Carmela in Jackie's relationship with Meadow. Jackie is killed by Vito for his involvement in a robbery at Christopher's and Furio's executive card game, and for shooting a made man, Furio. This drives Meadow to drink and into depression, although they had broken up shortly before his death.
Interests and hobbies
Tony is an animal lover and enjoys feeding the ducks that visit his pool. He has a sentimental attachment towards animals, as he had been traumatized by the loss of his childhood dog (as revealed in the episode "In Camelot"), whose name was "Tippy". When he goes to confront Angie Bonpensiero as she is walking her poodle, the dog greets Tony in a friendly manner, which Tony reciprocates. During Christopher Moltisanti's intervention, when Tony hears Christopher accidentally suffocated Adrianna's dog, he is furious, saying, "I oughta suffocate you, you little prick!".
He becomes involved in horse racing through his friend Hesh Rabkin, who owns a stable, and invests in a racehorse named Pie-O-My. When his horse is killed in a fire – possibly set by Ralph Cifaretto – Tony is deeply upset and saddened and kills Cifaretto, yelling: "She was a beautiful innocent creature. What did she ever do to you?" He repeats "You fucking killed her!", while banging Cifaretto's head against the floor.
When informed by Carmela that a black bear has been foraging in his home's backyard while they were separated during Season 5, he reacts with interest, rather than fear. During his stay in the hospital after his shooting, he can be seen reading a book about dinosaurs, given by Carmela. In the series finale, Tony finds a stray cat at his safe house during the war with New York and takes a liking to it. He brings it back to Satriale's, where it stares at the deceased Chris Moltisanti's photo (much to Paulie's dismay).
Tony is seen many times throughout the show engaging in both freshwater and saltwater angling. His son Anthony Jr. sometimes accompanies him on fishing outings. During the second season, he presents his son with a Fenwick rod and a Penn International reel, both extremely high-quality products. In the sixth season, while in Florida with Paulie, he rents a sport fishing boat. He is sometimes haunted by visions of Pussy Bonpensiero incarnated in the form of a fish – presumably a reference to the disposal of his body in the ocean, or perhaps a reference to "sleeping with the fishes," from Godfather I. A Big Mouth Billy Bass novelty singing fish, brought into the Bada Bing by Georgie and another later presented to him as a Christmas present by his daughter Meadow, recalls his nightmare and disturbs him greatly.
Throughout the series, Tony is shown to be a frequent cigar smoker, as well as an occasional cigarette smoker. He can be seen smoking a cigar during important events, such as shortly before being told of his mother's death and when disposing of Ralph Cifaretto's corpse. In the Season 1 episode "A Hit Is a Hit", he gives his doctor and next-door neighbor Bruce Cusamano a box of Cuban cigars as a thank-you gift for referring him to Dr. Melfi.
Vehicles
Like most of the mobsters in the series, Tony is shown to be partial to Cadillac and Lincoln vehicles. When discussing with Dr. Melfi a bizarre dream in which his penis falls off, he mentions that he went to the guy who used to "work on my Lincoln when I drove Lincolns". For the first four seasons, Tony drives a burgundy 1999 Chevrolet Suburban LT 4x4.
In season 5 he drives a black Cadillac Escalade ESV. This black Escalade is totaled in an accident and quickly replaced with a white Escalade ESV. Tony has this Escalade until the end of the series. He has occasionally used Carmela's Mercedes-Benz E-Class station wagon and drove it when they went places together.
Extramarital affairs
Throughout the series, Tony is shown to be a serial adulterer. He typically has mistresses whom he consistently sees for long periods, though he also has several brief one-night stands with strippers from the Bada Bing.
His wife Carmela is tacitly aware of his infidelity and usually views it as a form of masturbation, though sometimes the bottled-up tensions explode in domestic arguments. At the end of Season 4, Irina telephones Carmela in a jealous rage at Tony's cheating on her with her cousin Svetlana, which causes Carmela to finally snap. Carmela throws Tony out of the house and begins divorce proceedings.
Tony has a strong preference for women of European, particularly Italian descent, with dark hair and eyes. His mistresses have been, in chronological order, of Russian (Irina and later Svetlana), Italian (Gloria Trillo), Italian-Cuban (Valentina La Paz), and Jewish descent (Julianna Skiff). He favors dark features but also has a few brief flings with blonde American European women, including a stewardess from Icelandic Airways and a medical assistant. He has one very short encounter with an Asian-American escort during "The Test Dream".
Mistresses:
Irina Peltsin – a young Russian woman whom he sees consistently throughout the first two seasons. She frequently calls Tony's house when drunk, and when Carmela hints that she knows that he is seeing her, he breaks off the relationship. After her suicide attempt, Tony sends Silvio to give her a monetary compensation of $75,000 and try to reason with her about moving on with her life.
Gloria Trillo – an Italian-American Mercedes-Benz saleswoman with stylish tastes. Tony dates her throughout Season 3 after meeting her at Dr. Melfi's office (Melfi repeatedly expresses her disapproval of their relationship, knowing it will likely turn out a disaster). He eventually stops seeing her when she begins stalking him and calling his house while exhibiting manipulative behaviors reminding him of his own mother (which is foreshadowed very early on when she teases him by saying "poor you", jokingly at first). He also understands through Dr. Melfi's hints that Gloria is trying to use him as a means to commit suicide (akin to the suicide by cop phenomenon). Tony asks Patsy Parisi to threaten her; Parisi tells her that, if she tries again to harass Tony, the last face she'll see will be his, not Tony's, and that "it won't be cinematic". It turns out that it throws her over the edge and she commits suicide soon afterward, hanging herself. This greatly upsets Tony, who blames it on himself as well as Dr. Melfi.
Therapy
Tony has suffered from panic attacks that sometimes cause him to lose consciousness since his childhood. He has his first on-screen panic attack while cooking sausages at his son's birthday party—this occurs in a flashback in the pilot episode. Tony loses consciousness and causes a small explosion when he drops a bottle of lighter fluid onto the coals. Tony describes the experience of the panic attack as feeling like he had "ginger ale in his skull". This prompts him to seek help for the attacks. After extensive testing that includes an MRI scan and blood work, no physical cause can be found, so Dr. Cusamano refers Tony to psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi.
Tony's therapy allows a discussion of his thoughts and feelings away from both aspects of his life—this forum for reaching into the character's thoughts has been described as a Greek chorus, and as a key for viewers to understand the character.
Tony is initially very resistant to the idea that there was a psychiatric cause for his symptoms. He resents being in therapy and refuses to accept the diagnosis of panic attacks given him by the neurologists who had investigated his illness. Tony begins to open up once Dr. Melfi explains the doctor-patient confidentiality rules. He tells her about the stress of his business life—he has a feeling that he has come in at the end of something and describes a reverence for the glorified "old days" of the Mafia. Tony leaves out the violence associated with his criminal career. Tony tells Dr. Melfi a story about ducks landing in his pool. He describes his mother Livia as a cold, mean-spirited woman with whom he has an openly hostile relationship. By the end of the first session Tony has admitted that he feels depressed, but storms out when Dr. Melfi presses him further about the relationship between his symptoms and the ducks.
When the family visits Green Grove, a retirement community where Tony is trying to place his mother, Livia's derisive outburst prompts a second panic attack. Melfi prescribes Prozac as an anti-depressant, telling him that no one needs to have depression with the wonders of modern pharmacology. Tony fails to attend their next scheduled session.
At their next session, Tony is still reluctant to face his psychological weaknesses. Tony is quick to credit the medication for his improved mood, but Dr. Melfi tells him it cannot be that, as it takes six weeks to work—she credits their therapy sessions. Tony describes a dream where a bird steals his penis. Melfi extrapolates that Tony has projected his love for his family onto the family of ducks living in his pool. This brings him to tears, to his consternation. She tells him that their flight from the pool sparked his panic attack through the overwhelming fear of somehow losing his own family.
Shootings
In the first season, Tony is attacked by William Johnson "Petite" Clayborn and Rasheen Ray, two hitmen sent by Donnie Paduana to execute Tony. Tony sustains an injury to his ear, which is partially shot off, and minor bruises and cuts from crashing his vehicle. One of the two assailants, Clayborn, is shot dead by Ray in an attempt to kill Tony, and Ray is left bruised but runs off.
In the premiere of the sixth season, "Members Only", Junior Soprano, suffering from dementia, believes Tony to be Gennaro "Little Pussy" Malanga, and shoots him in the abdomen. Tony dials 911 but loses consciousness before being able to tell the operator what happened.
In the second episode of the sixth season, "Join the Club", Tony is in a medically induced coma in the hospital. In the second and third episodes, the viewer sees Tony in a dream-like state, eventually arriving at what could be purgatory, where he is greeted by a man who takes the physical form of his late cousin Tony Blundetto. The shadowy figure in the doorway of the house has the profile of his mother, who is dead. The voice of a younger version of his daughter calls him back. At the end of the third episode, he awakes from his coma in a confused but stable state.
By the fourth episode, Tony is mobile and fully aware and has regained his voice. Tony's attitude toward life is changed by his near-death experience. He has yet to discuss his experiences while unconscious with anyone close to him. However, in the Season 6 episode "Kaisha", he admits to Phil Leotardo (who had just suffered a heart attack), that while he was in a coma, he went to a place where he never wants to go again. While talking philosophy with John Schwinn, another patient at the hospital, he mentions that while in the coma he had the experience of being drawn towards somewhere he did not want to go and narrowly avoided it.
In the sixth episode of season 6, part 2, "Kennedy and Heidi", Tony sustains minor injuries in a car accident that seriously injures his nephew, Christopher Moltisanti. Tony suffocates Christopher after this accident. Tony is on bed rest for a few days and quickly recovers. Nonetheless, this gives his family quite a scare and a painful memory of his nearly fatal shooting the previous year.
Dreams
Tony sometimes has vivid dreams that are shown to the viewer. Episodes with dream sequences include "Pax Soprana", "Isabella", "Funhouse", "Everybody Hurts", "Calling All Cars", and "The Test Dream".
In the pilot, Tony tells Dr. Melfi about a dream he had wherein he had a screw in his belly button, which when removed, causes his penis to fall off. He tries to find a car mechanic (who had worked on his Lincoln when Tony drove Lincolns) to put it back on, but a duck swoops down and snatches it from his hand.
In "Meadowlands", Tony has a dream that several people in his life are present in Dr. Melfi's office: Hesh Rabkin strolling by the window, A.J. behind the door, Silvio Dante having sex with a woman in the waiting room, and Paulie Walnuts and Big Pussy reading Chinese newspapers. This causes him to worry that people will find out he is seeing a psychiatrist. The dream ends with Tony confronting Melfi, seeing Jackie Aprile, Sr. on his deathbed smoking a cigarette, asking Tony, "You smell that? That's rain," and only to find out that Melfi is his mother, Livia.
In "Pax Soprana", Tony has several dreams and fantasies about Dr. Melfi. He becomes convinced that he is in love with her, but she turns him down when he makes advances toward her.
In "Isabella", Tony, suffering from depression after Big Pussy disappears, acquaints himself with a dental student named Isabella who is staying in the Cusamano home while they are on vacation. He later discovers that he had hallucinated Isabella due to taking too much lithium and that Isabella represented the mother he never had.
In "Funhouse", an extended dream sequence exposes many of Tony's subconscious thoughts and feelings through symbolic and sometimes bizarre events: he attempts suicide to preempt a doctor's diagnosis of early death by dousing himself in gasoline and lighting himself on fire; he witnesses himself shooting Paulie Walnuts to death during a card game; he has an innuendo-laden conversation with Dr. Melfi while sporting a prominent erection, and a fish that speaks with the voice of Big Pussy confirms his suspicions that the longtime friend and soldier is a federal informant.
Legacy and cultural impact
The character of Tony Soprano popularized the "antihero" character on television after the release of The Sopranos. Playwright Craig Wright stated, "A show like The Sopranos has a soothing quality because ultimately there's an unspoken assumption behind it that even the most monstrous people are haunted by the same concerns we're haunted by." Tony Soprano quickly became a pop culture icon during the show's run. In an article for the Los Angeles Times, Chris Lee referred to Tony Soprano as a "cultural sensation" who became the "unlikeliest of sex symbols." On the importance of Gandolfini's performance, Lee stated: "He forever rejiggered television's fascination with morally challenged antiheroes and less-than-physically-perfect protagonists."
The Globe and Mail wrote, "Women made Tony Soprano an unlikely sex symbol – and the men found him no less seductive. Wish fulfillment has always been at the queasy heart of the mobster genre, the longing for a life outside the bounds of convention, mingled with the conflicted desire to see the perpetrator punished for the same transgression. So it was for the fictional men of the straight world on The Sopranos, who were drawn to Tony's flame with consistently disastrous results. Likewise for viewers, for whom a life of taking, killing, and sleeping with whomever and whatever one wants had an undeniable, if conflict-laden, appeal."
The final scene of "Made in America" became the subject of much discussion, controversy, and analysis after its original broadcast; however, Chase consistently refused to give any definitive answers. The use of an abrupt cut to black followed by several seconds of silence led many viewers to initially believe that their cable or DVR had cut out at a crucial moment. Opposing interpretations soon emerged among viewers regarding the ultimate fate of Tony, with some believing that he was killed while others believed that he remained alive. During a November 2021 interview with Hollywood Reporter, Chase made comments which seemed to confirm Tony Soprano was killed at the end of the final episode.
Following Gandolfini's death on June 19, 2013, his portrayal of Tony Soprano was praised for its influence on subsequent other TV characters. TV Guide columnist Matt Roush stated, "Without Tony, there's no Vic Mackey of The Shield, no Al Swearengen of Deadwood, no Don Draper of Mad Men (whose creator, Matthew Weiner, honed his craft as a writer on The Sopranos)." Similar testimonials were included by his co-stars and colleagues; Bryan Cranston stated that his Breaking Bad character, Walter White, would not have existed without Tony Soprano. Mark Lawson of The Guardian praised Gandolfini for his "towering central performance" as Tony Soprano, writing: "The Sopranos was part of a wave of American TV dramas that finally persuaded cineastes and critics who had been snobbish and dismissive about television as a medium to accept the smaller screen as an artistic equivalent of the larger one. Although many of those who watched and wrote about TV had got this message much earlier, the remarkable and sustained range of Gandolfini's portrayal of Tony Soprano played a major part in ending any remaining inferiority complex about the medium."
