To those still mourning Carmela Soprano’s cut scene from “The Many Saints of Newark” in 2021, Edie Falco is now weighing in on how her character played a part in the prequel film to David Chase’s “The Sopranos.”
Speaking with IndieWire to promote her upcoming indie comedy “I’ll Be Right There,” Falco tells us about how her opening scene for “Many Saints” had gotten cut.
“I came in, and I did a monologue,” Falco told IndieWire. “I’m embarrassed that I don’t know what [exactly] it was about. It was Carmela as if she was musing on the old days, and then the movie began. Then I found out that [Taylor] didn’t end up using it. What a flippy day that was [laughs]. All these years later they’re doing my hair, putting on jewelry, putting the nails back on, it was like a serious trip. There were so many ‘Sopranos’ people there. It was so lovely. I’m so deeply fond of those people, Alan Taylor, of course, amongst them.”
In getting back into the mode of Carmela, Falco said, “It was crazy, but so normal, because I spent 10 years of my life doing that daily. You don’t get to do that a lot.” Though “Whitecaps” may be the best episode of just how brilliantly Falco showcases Soprano — and this writer’s favorite — IndieWire asked Falco to weigh in on what other episodes stood out.
“There were a lot of scenes where David Chase was brave enough to keep the dialogue really minimal, where Jim Gandolfini and I got to just kind of be in a room together, do a thing, cook something, and put it in front of him; just the feeling of a long term marriage to people who know each other. [Some of those] not momentous, plot-driven scenes were a bunch that I just adored,” she said. “I loved the bravery of David letting us just be there and portray that idea of how well and how long these two people have known each other. I remember doing a few of those and thinking, ‘God, it’s so delightful to not have to feel like you have to push it along with dialogue.’”
Of that cut opening scene to “Many Saints,” Taylor said to NME back in 2021, “Not to give away too much but, when you make a movie you’re not exactly sure the final shape it’s going to be and we, believe it or not, shot a few things that included other cast members.”
“We had Edie come in and she dressed up as Carmela and we shot something with her and it wound up not being in the final movie but it was a great excuse to see her again,” Taylor continued. “She’s so ridiculously talented and she’s also one of these people who — and it seems to frequently be women — that manage to be perfect actors and also the sanest people you’ve ever met in your life. I think Frances McDormand is like that and Edie Falco has that same quality of being like a solid, good, sane person. It was good to see her again.”
Falco recently reunited with most of the cast of “The Sopranos” at the Tribeca premiere of David Chase’s buzzy two-part documentary “Wise Guy: David Chase and ‘The Sopranos,’” set to premiere on Max September 7. She cameos in the documentary along the likes of cast favorites Lorraine Bracco, Michael Imperioli, Drea de Matteo, and more. Per the official synopsis, the documentary “delves deep into the psyche of renowned ‘Sopranos’ creator and writer, David Chase, to illuminate his life and career while offering a unique window into his unparalleled work on the iconic program.”
