@deadwronghistory1: James Gandolfini sat down with James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio on October 17, 2004. The Sopranos was in its fifth season. He had two Emmys and was halfway through a run that would make Tony Soprano one of the most studied performances in American television. Lipton asks how long he spent studying acting at Susan Aston's class. Two years. Then he asks what Gandolfini took from it. What follows is one of the more honest things any actor has said on that stage. Aston had been trying for months to get Gandolfini to use his anger. He kept refusing. Then one day she set him up. She had a partner do something to him in the scene. He doesn't say what. Whatever it was, it worked. He destroyed the set. He came back to himself with his hands bleeding. Aston walked over and told him: everybody's fine. Nobody got hurt. This is what people pay for. They don't want to see the guy next door. This is what you need to express, and what we have to learn to control. That moment is the foundation of Tony Soprano. Gandolfini died of a heart attack in a hotel room in Rome on June 19, 2013. He was 51. #JamesGandolfini #TheSopranos #InsideTheActorsStudio #JamesLipton #2004 #InterviewHistory #DeadWrongHistory

Dead Wrong History

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Wednesday 24 June 2026 09:10:27 GMT