‘The Sopranos’ stars to host new podcast
“The Sopranos” stars Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa, who respectively played Christopher Moltisanti and Bobby “Bacala” Baccalieri, will host the new podcast “Talking Sopranos” which is dropping this April on Apple, Spotify, YouTube and other podcast platforms.
This podcast will follow “The Sopranos” series episode by episode providing inside info, behind the scenes stories and little-known facts that could only come from those on the inside. The close friends will also share candid conversations about working in the entertainment industry.
Emmy winner Imperioli, who wrote and produced five of “The Sopranos” episodes — “From Where to Eternity” (Season 2, ep. 9), “The Telltale Moozadell” (season 3, ep. 9), “Christoper” (season 4, ep. 3), “Everybody Hurts” (season 4, ep. 6) and “Marco Polo” (season 5, ep. 8) said, “This will be the definitive ‘Sopranos’ podcast”.
Many of the “Talking Sopranos” episodes will feature interviews with additional cast members, producers, writers, production crew and special guests. Listeners will also be able to submit questions directly to the show and have them answered by Imperioli and Schirripa.
The podcast arrives at a ripe time, not only in the wake of last year’s 20th anniversary for the HBO series, but New Line has “The Sopranos” prequel feature, “The Many Saints of Newark”, directed by Alan Taylor and produced and co -written by Sopranos creator David Chase.
“Talking Sopranos” is a Podjams production from executive producer Jeff Sussman and producer Andy Verderame. All 86 episodes of “The Sopranos” can be rewatched on HBO platforms and Amazon video
The ending was a reminder of what made David Chase’s series about New Jersey mobsters so distinctive from the beginning. “The Sopranos” was the most unusual and realistic family drama in television history. There have been many good Mafia movies and one legendary trilogy, but fans had to look to literature to find comparable representations of the complexity and inconsistencies of American family life. It was sometimes hard to bear the encomiums — the saga of the New Jersey mob family has been likened to Cheever, Dickens and Shakespeare; scripts were pored over as if they were the Dead Sea Scrolls. But its saving grace was that the series was always many different things at once.
The decline and fall of the Sopranos — Tony; his wife, Carmela; and the rest — served as a parable of America in decline, yet week to week the series was also just a gangsters’ tale, with lots of graphic sex, gruesome violence and most of all a sense of humor.
In last night’s episode Meadow Soprano, trying to explain to her father why she wants to be a civil rights lawyer, said earnestly, “The state can crush the individual.” Tony replied, “New Jersey?”
And, as last night’s episode showed one last time, a troubled marriage struggles on, devastating intergenerational conflicts scab over but never quite heal, and power comes and goes. Some things endure, but nothing is permanent in American culture, or in the Soprano family .
Tony remains alive, still in business, his wife and children are safe, but he resumes his criminal enterprise surrounded by ever-darker shadows of prosaic impeding doom: an indictment and most likely a trial.
