From Chris Rock to Ray Liotta: ‘The Sopranos’ roles turned down by acting greats
Nobody can know at the time whether or not a TV series has the potential to go down as one of the most popular and acclaimed in history, with The Sopranos just one of many iconic shows that was turned down by several household names before it went on to achieve greatness.
Best known as ‘the dad from Malcolm in the Middle‘ at the time, eyebrows were raised when Bryan Cranston was announced to be headlining Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad as a terminally-ill science teacher who begins building a drug empire to safeguard his family’s future, which only came about when John Cusack and Matthew Broderick both turned down the part of Walter White.
Similarly, Michael Keaton was hired to play Jack Shephard in Lost when the character, eventually played by Matthew Fox, was supposed to die in the pilot episode. He didn’t want to commit to a series and exited the project, which went on to become one of the most heavily dissected and talked-about episodic productions of the 21st century.
David Chase’s seminal crime drama found its perfect Tony Soprano in James Gandolfini, who brought the pitch-perfect amount of gravitas, pathos, and barely-suppressed rage to one of television’s all-time great long-form performances, for which he won three Primetime Emmys and a Golden Globe. He was a known character actor at the time, but he hadn’t yet stumbled upon that career-defining role until The Sopranos.
He wasn’t the first choice, either, but it’s impossible to imagine anybody else embodying the patriarch of the titular crime clan to the same extent. Had one of the other contenders agreed to sign on the dotted line, then it’s entirely reasonable to believe that the entire complexion of the small screen’s ongoing ‘Golden Age’ could have turned out differently, such was the importance of The Sopranos in establishing television as no longer being viewed as lesser than or inferior to theatrically-released feature films.
Curiously given its reliance on Italian-American authenticity, Australian actor Anthony LaPaglia was considered the early front-runner to be Tony and met with Chase to discuss the in-development series, only for the star to decide that he “had a different idea for the character” from the showrunner.
Rumours followed Ray Liotta for years that he’d been approached with an offer to top-line The Sopranos, too, but that was only partially true. While the star of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas was indeed pitched an important part in the series, he clarified that while “David Chase wanted me to do something”, it was for the role of Ralph Cifaretto that was eventually played by Joe Pantoliano, “but never Tony”.
Jennifer Esposito was another person who repeatedly turned down the overtures made by the production team. The actor admits that the storylines and characters are so reflective of her own real-life upbringing that she is reluctant to accept any sort of on-screen guest spot. Confirming The Sopranos “wanted me to come in a few times for certain things,” she explained to Variety how certain plot elements hit too close to home, partly because “the girls I grew up around wanted to kill me, wanted to kill me every day, so it was PTSD”.
At various points throughout The Sopranos‘ run, it drafted in some high-profile guest stars and performers who would go on to achieve big things after their early appearances in the show, but Chris Rock was never interested in becoming one of its many celebrity cameos. Dream sequences opened the doors for famous faces to appear as themselves, but the comic and actor was too aware of the show’s reputation to commit.
He admitted that he was such a fan he didn’t want to “spoil it” by showing up in person, which ultimately saw him knock back several inquiries gauging if his mind had changed. Of course, The Sopranos was just fine as it was and impeccably cast from top to bottom, although it still presents the fascinating ‘what if’ proposition of having LaPaglia and Liotta instead of Gandolfini and Pantoliano, with Esposito and Rock along for the ride.
