{"id":139183,"date":"2024-09-18T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=139183"},"modified":"2025-09-17T08:34:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T12:34:41","slug":"happy-birthday-jim-gandolfini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=139183","title":{"rendered":"“I’ve been very lucky, considering what I look like and what I do.” — James Gandolfini"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nIt’s his birthday today. <\/p>\n

51 years old. It seems incomprehensible. Like a lot of people, he first came on my radar through the extraordinary scene in the motel room with Patricia Arquette in True Romance<\/i> (“you gotta lotta heart, kid.”) The moment I always remember, though, the moment that struck me most when I first saw it, was the look on his face after he punches her for the first time. There’s a little smile, the eyes flying up to the ceiling. It’s absolutely brilliant: what I see in that smile, is the tiny flash of shame this character can still feel, and the smile is the way it’s handled. Watch for it again. It’s not a sneering “I just showed this bitch” psycho smile. It’s the smile of a little kid who stole something and got busted. It’s extremely chilling, and representative of the kind of emotionally detailed and instinctual work Gandolfini would become known for. <\/p>\n

While Gandolfini’s impact on the culture can’t really be measured, due to The Sopranos<\/i> (his work in that is such an enormous accomplishment it’s still daunting on a re-watch) … his film work was also superb and varied. It wasn’t just a retread of Tony Soprano. He played a lot of gangsters and heavies, but always with their own complex little spin. He was a great great character actor. And I treasure the wonderful Enough Said<\/i><\/a>, unique in his filmography, because he got to play a romantic lead. And he killed it. Gandolfini’s final role was in The Drop<\/i>, which came out in 2014, a movie I really liked. I wrote about it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the main thing I remember about Gandolfini is the enormous privilege of going to see him in God of Carnage<\/i> on Broadway (with Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis, and Jeff Daniels). I went with three of my cousins and we sat in the third row. It was THE ticket in town and so we were very very lucky. It’s one of the most exhilarating theatrical experiences I’ve ever had as an audience member. I wrote about it here.<\/a> It was the first thing Gandolfini did after The Sopranos<\/i> ended, which speaks volumes about who he was as an actor. <\/p>\n

When he died, I wrote an obit for Capital New York<\/a>, and I focused mainly on that live performance. It wasn’t captured on film. 19th c. actor Edwin Booth said, \u201cAn actor is a sculptor who carved in snow.\u201d The reality of theatre. You can\u2019t keep it forever the way you can a film. But that doesn\u2019t make it any less precious. In many ways, it makes it MORE precious. God of Carnage is one of Gandolfini\u2019s best and I will always be so grateful I got to see it. A beautiful sculpture made of snow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s his birthday today. 51 years old. It seems incomprehensible. Like a lot of people, he first came on my radar through the extraordinary scene in the motel room with Patricia Arquette in True Romance (“you gotta lotta heart, kid.”) … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,4,39,31,16],"tags":[1207],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=139183"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194312,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139183\/revisions\/194312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=139183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=139183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=139183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}