Michael Imperioli reveals the “most brutal” scenes to shoot for ‘The Sopranos’
The Sopranos star Michael Imperioli has reflected on the “most brutal” scenes to shoot in the hit TV show.
Famously, Imperioli starred as Christopher Moltisanti in the HBO series. He is the protégé of the main character Tony Soprano and a member of the DiMeo crime family, and over the six seasons rises from associate to captain. However, he is ultimately murdered by Soprano after a car accident, which rids him of his problematic nephew.
Despite Christopher’s death being one of the most memorable and violent ends in The Sopranos, in a new interview with The Guardian, Michael Imperioli revealed that he does not think his on-screen demise was the “most brutal” to film.
“That wasn’t really brutal at all, I’ll be honest with you,” Imperioli told the publication. “When we shot it, it wasn’t my last day either because we shot out of sequence. The most brutal, difficult stuff for me is when Christopher had to be physically abusive with Adriana [Drea de Matteo], for obvious reasons.”
He continued: “On a technical level, you’re trying to be really careful so you don’t hurt the person. But having to get to that point of violence towards a woman, you have to go to some nasty places to get there. Sometimes it’s very immediate. Sometimes it’s something present in your life that you can tap into.”
The actor added: “Sometimes you have to go someplace from the past. And sometimes you have to go to someplace imaginary. It’s much easier shooting a mobster or shooting heroin. That stuff to me is not difficult. But that stuff with her was. Sometimes you’ll use stunt doubles, sometimes not. And even then, it’s one thing to choreograph and rehearse it, then when you act it full-tilt with all the emotion, it’s easy to not have as much control as in the rehearsal. So you really have to be quite careful.”
Elsewhere, Imperioli was asked whether his opinion on Tony and Christopher’s relationship changed after watching the 2021 prequel movie, The Mant Saints of Newark.
He replied: “Christopher’s father was a mobster and he was whatever all that entails. These are gangsters. They do really bad things. But Dickie Moltisanti did have some good qualities. I thought, if Christopher actually had this guy in his life raising him, he might have turned out a lot different. I think a lot of Christopher’s problems came from the absence of Dickie, because Christopher’s father was murdered when he was really young.”
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