The Sopranos will forever be remembered as one of the best TV shows of all time, despite the lingering questions that some fans may or may not have after the series’ six-season run. Like most HBO shows, what makes The Sopranos so enticing and believable (reminder: the series follows a mob boss, a person who kills other people, yet the audience still roots for him) is the acting. One such actor who makes the crime show’s quality stand out is Edie Falco. Opposite the late James Gandolfini, Falco plays Carmela Soprano, mobster Tony Soprano’s wife, to perfection.
Now that the show has been resting for over a decade since its June 2007 finale, actors, writers, and the show’s creators have answered questions about what really happened in cloudy situations (such as if Big Tony is still alive) off the screen, as well as made known certain parts they enjoyed filming. In June 2020, Falco took a stroll down memory lane on the Talking Sopranos podcast with former co-stars Michael Imperioli (Christopher Moltisanti) and Steve Schirripa (Bobby Baccalieri).
During the reminiscing session, Imperioli asked Falco if she had a favorite episode or scene from her time working on The Sopranos. Although the show runs for 86 carefully crafted and well-written episodes and has millions of memorable moments, Falco was able narrow everything down to one.
Edie Falco thinks fondly of a Sopranos scene between Carmela and Tony with minimal dialogue
One could assume that an actor’s favorite scene would feature a memorable moment on the show or for his or her career, or perhaps an intense, rip-roaring monologue. Despite all the hardcore and deviant sequences that will forever go down in Sopranos lore, however, Falco’s favorite scene wasn’t one of them. She told Imperioli and Schirripa that her favorite Sopranos scene was one with little dialogue.
“David Chase was brave enough to write scenes where there wasn’t a lot of dialogue,” Falco said on Talking Sopranos. “Which was kind of unheard of on television series. […] And David would occasionally give Jim [Gandolfini] and I a scene where we didn’t say much.”
Audiences can view brief dialogue in intense situations as awkward or uncomfortable, as the characters look at each other in bewilderment, but paring down the words in a conversation also means that the scene in question has to rely almost entirely on the acting. The actors can’t fall back on an intriguing one-liner — they have to rely on their emotions to get the point across while moving the story forward. This is exactly why a dialogue-less scene on The Sopranos was Falco’s favorite.
Sadly, Falco couldn’t remember the actual scene frame for frame, so it’s unfortunate viewers can’t go back to her exact favorite moment. She did, however, recall the writing and Gandolfini’s acting chops as being incredibly. She also mentioned that the moment could take place in the kitchen, in which the Sopranos started so many of their mornings before a storm of criminal activity rolled in.
“I don’t think a word was said through the whole thing,” Falco said. “It ended up being just so moving, and so rich. But it was one of a number of scenes Jim and I had where we didn’t talk. And I just loved [that].”
Falco made it sound like a dream come true — as can be expected when working on a show that’s an all-time great, and starring alongside, to say the very least, extremely talented performers. “It was such an opportunity I hadn’t had,” she said. “Nor have I had it since [The Sopranos].”
