James Gandolfini almost quit ‘The Sopranos’ after failed drugs intervention

nme.com:

James Gandolfini almost walked out on The Sopranos following a failed drugs intervention, according to those behind the show.The actor, who passed away in 2013, famously played the role of mobster Tony Soprano across the show’s six seasons between 1999 and 2007.Speaking in new documentary Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos, HBO CEO Chris Albrecht recalled the actor’s struggles with substance abuse during production.“We did an intervention with him at my apartment in New York,” he said. “That was to try to get him to go to a facility for rehab.

We’d had a lot of friction by that point, and the ruse was that I was inviting Jimmy over so we could talk things through and kind of clear the air.”“He walked in, and he saw everybody sitting there, and he went, ‘Aw, fuck this.’ And he walked out,” Albrecht added. “Everybody went, ‘Jimmy, Jimmy!’ And he turned to me and he went, ‘Fire me,’ and he left.”Fellow star Steven Van Zandt, who played Silvio Dante, admitted that Gandolfini “probably quit the show every other day.

Maybe every day”.“Every other day we would go to a bar and we would have the exact same conversation,” he recalled. “We’d get drunk and [he’d] say, ‘I’m done.