From Michael B. Jordan to Lady Gaga: 10 surprising actors who appeared in ‘The Sopranos’
A sprawling saga that pitted a gangster story against a family drama and let them overlap across the course of six unforgettable seasons, The Sopranos is always part of the conversation when it comes to naming the greatest TV show of all time.
While the story itself and the impeccable writing would have been more than enough to secure it that status, the entire ensemble cast was pitch-perfect in their roles from James Gandolfini’s Tony all the way down.
It turned several recognisable faces and lesser-known names into stars as a result, but the 86 episodes of The Sopranos also featured plenty of guests who would go on to achieve great things in their own right.
Individually, each of the following ten names have enjoyed a stellar career in the aftermath of their guest appearances on David Chase’s small-screen classic, and in many cases, it marked one of their first steps into acting.
10 surprising actors in The Sopranos:
10. Mike Epps
The first-ever television acting credit of Mike Epps’ career came in the second-ever episode of The Sopranos, so only viewers with a photographic memory – or those who’ve recently started a rewatch – will be able to recall his contributions in any sort of great detail.
Playing the small role of Jerome, Epps steals a car belonging to A.J. Soprano’s science teacher and ends up coming face-to-face with Paulie Gualtieri and Salvatore ‘Big Pussy’ Bonpensiero for his troubles. Two episodes in, and future stars were already part of the series.
9. Cristin Milioti
Grammy Award-winning stage and screen performer Cristin Milioti will next be seen starring opposite Colin Farrell in the Max spinoff series The Penguin as Sofia Falcone, although she’s arguably still best known for being the titular matriarch in How I Met Your Mother.
30 Rock, Family Guy, Fargo, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Palm Springs are among her other film and television credits, but her second role ever came when she appeared as Catherine Sacrimoni in the fifth episode of The Sopranos‘ sixth season.
The second daughter of John and Virginia Sacrimoni – better known as Johnny and Ginny Sack – she returned in the tenth and 14th episodes of season six to round out her brief arc.
8. Tony Hale
A two-time Primetime Emmy winner in the ‘Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series’ category for his work on Veep, Tony Hale is another who made one of their first forays into television via a very brief stint in The Sopranos.
In the seventh episode of season seven, he plays a non-speaking role as a nurse handling Junior Soprano’s chemotherapy treatment. He didn’t even manage to get a word in, but big things would loom on the horizon for the talented comedic performer eventually.
7. Sydney Pollack
Winning two Academy Awards from seven nominations and directing Three Days of the Condor, Tootsie, Out of Africa, and The Firm, among many others, Sydney Pollack was every bit as capable an actor as he was a filmmaker, with Eyes Wide Shut and Michael Clayton among his on-camera only roles.
In what turned out to be his penultimate performance on the small screen before he died in 2008, Pollack appeared in a solitary episode of The Sopranos the year before his passing as Warren Feldman, an oncologist imprisoned for murder to offered Johnny Sack a second opinion on his cancer diagnosis.
6. Will Arnett
Arrested Development, BoJack Horseman, Blades of Glory, The Lego Batman Movie, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have kept Will Arnett gainfully employed in the world of comedy for two decades, but he played it completely straight in The Sopranos as Mike Waldrup.
The FBI agent was married to Lola Glaudini’s Deborah Ciccone, a fellow government official who’d gone undercover to try and infiltrate organized crime groups by making friends with Drea de Matteo’s Adriana La Cerva in the first two episodes of season four.
5. Paul Dano
Now widely recognised as one of the most reliable and captivating characters of his generation, Paul Dano has delivered incredible work in titles as diverse as 12 Years a Slave, There Will be Blood, The Batman, Little Miss Sunshine, Swiss Army Man, and many more.
At the beginning of his career, though, she sported quite the bowl cut in The Sopranos as Patrick Whalen, a friend of A.J.’s who was obsessed with The Godfather and thus very curious about Tony’s criminal connections. He was in two episodes, although they were split across seasons four and five.
4. Tobin Bell
Tobin Bell had been acting since the 1970s, but he didn’t land the defining role of his career until the early 2000s when he became the face of the Saw franchise, with the star recently reprising the role of John Kramer in the tenth instalment.
He’d appeared in plenty of great movies beforehand, including Mississippi Burning, The Firm, Goodfellas, In the Line of Fire, and The Quick and the Dead, but three years before becoming the on-screen godfather of torture porn, Bell appeared in a season three episode of The Sopranos as Major Carl Zwingli, the head of a military school Tony and Carmela Soprano are considering sending A.J. to attend on account of his errant behaviour.
3. Lin-Manuel Miranda
One step away from becoming an EGOT after winning three Tonys, two Emmys, and five Grammys, Lin-Manuel Miranda has come agonizingly close to completing the set after being nominated for two Academy Awards so far to no avail.
Famed for his work in musicals – before transplanting that success to the big screen by penning songs for several Disney blockbusters – his television debut came as the imaginatively-titled ‘Bellman’ in the 15th episode of season six, where he plays a hotel employee who gets caught up in an awkward conversation with Tony and Paulie.
2. Lady Gaga
Seven years before the release of her debut studio album The Fame, which instantly saw her anointed as one of the biggest stars in pop music, aspiring actress Stefani Germanotta made her professional on-screen debut in season four of The Sopranos.
Only 15 years old at the time ninth episode ‘The Telltale Moozadell’ aired; the future superstar and household name played a classmate of A.J.’s who gets a kick out of her social circle, launching the belongings of a teacher into the water at the high school pool.
1. Michael B. Jordan
Michael B. Jordan got his big break by starring in one of the greatest TV shows ever made, with teenage drug dealer Wallace ultimately meeting a bullet-riddled fate following a 12-episode stint in David Simon’s seminal crime drama The Wire.
However, creating an unlikely connection with Lady Gaga, he too made his very first on-screen appearance in The Sopranos. Featuring in a flashback sequence, Jordan is one of three children who chase down a young Tony for littering in the first season, but it wasn’t long before his career was firmly in the ascendancy.
