Michael Imperioli met with a witch to get ‘Summer of Sam’ made
The Sopranos star, Michael Imperioli, has revealed that he flirted with the supernatural to prepare for the 1999 movie he co-wrote, Summer of Sam.
The American actor discussed this career moment in the new documentary Ghosts of the Chelsea Hotel, about the famous New York haunt where he used to live. The building has been home to many cultural icons over the years, such as Andy Warhol and Patti Smith and is connected to others like Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Arthur Miller and Mark Twain. The movie was directed by Danny Garcia.
In the film, Imperioli explains that he met a witch in order to push the thriller “through the studio system” in Hollywood. “I had just begun writing Summer of Sam with Victor Colicchio — we wrote that script together,” Imperioli says in a new exclusive clip from the film. “I really wanted to get it made. So I met somebody who was living here who was a witch, who said she could help me get it made, but it wasn’t going to happen the way I thought it would. I was very ambitious at the time and wanted to get that made, so [I] resorted to tapping into otherworldly means to get it through the studio system.”
The Sopranos star didn’t explain exactly what magic he flirted with. However, it seemed it worked. Summer of Sam was directed and co-written by Spike Lee and released by Buena Vista Pictures. Notably, Imperioli and Lee also played minor roles in the film.
Elsewhere in the movie, Imperioli remembers moving into the Chelsea Hotel at age 29. “The Chelsea is a very mythical place,” he states. “Especially if you’re an artist in New York, it looms very large, and the idea of living here seemed not really possible.”
In another scene, via Variety, Imperioli recalls a ghost story from his time at the Chelsea Hotel. “I saw a ghost here,” he recalls. “Some people may think that I’m insane and it’s bullshit or whatever. But I’m not the only person who has seen this apparition of a woman, apparently from the late 19th century, whose soon-to-be husband died on the Titanic. She came from upstate or something and was waiting for him here, and when she found out what happened to him, she killed herself.”
Ghosts of the Chelsea Hotel premieres in New York City at screenings at Joe’s Pub on September 5th and 11th.
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