How Bruce Springsteen inspired Steven Van Zandt’s ‘Sopranos’ character
They say to write what you know. If you want to give your audience an honest performance, it’s easier to reach into yourself and commit your personal thoughts and feelings to whatever you’re doing. Bruce Springsteen does this in the music that he writes, which talks of the struggles of growing up working class, a love for music and good times with good people. Understanding the benefit of such honesty, Steven Van Zandt took a similar approach with his acting debut in 1999.
After leaving the E-Street Band in 1984, Van Zandt re-joined the same year he accepted a role in the hit TV series The Sopranos. This was his debut acting role, so naturally, Van Zandt wanted to do a good job. To understand his character, he dived deep into their psyche to better map out their thoughts and feelings. He has since confirmed that he took a lot of inspiration for his character from Bruce.
The two have known each other since they were very young and have been making music and performing together ever since. That time together cemented a friendship between them that runs much deeper than just their music.
“Our friendship is deeper than any of that, and it’s forever,” said Van Zandt, “I decided that very early on. Remember, he was a very different person the first 10 years I knew him. He wasn’t the world’s greatest entertainer. He was like one of those grunge guys with long hair that just stares at his shoes. But I got extraordinary strength from finding one other person on the planet that felt the same way I did about rock and roll.”
Given their longstanding friendship, when Van Zandt had to find inspiration for his character in The Sopranos, Silvio Dante, a longstanding friend of Tony, turned to Bruce. “I decided that I had to create this guy,” he said, “First of all, I wrote a biography of who the guy was and I made up my own story. He grew up with Tony Soprano, he was his best friend, he’s the only guy who doesn’t want to be the boss, he’s the only guy he trusts. I kind of used my relationship with Bruce, basically.”
Of course, in a violent and creatively free world like The Sopranos, Van Zandt also infused his character with a sense of fiction. “Part of the biography, by the way, was that he kind of romanticised the mob’s history and felt that the best times were over. The good times are gone, now everybody’s ratting everybody out and the good old days of the mob are long gone. But he was a traditionalist, so he wanted to have that kind of honour that he felt the old mob guys had, and so he looked like a throwback. I have a Fifties haircut and a Fifties kind of demeanour because that was his philosophy.”
With his role in The Sopranos, Van Zandt displays an excellent approach to creativity. It is essential to put elements of yourself into what you write and perform, but it’s also necessary to know where to draw the line and let creativity take over. In doing this, he delivered a believable and entertaining performance in that, unlike his character, won’t get lost in the past.
