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Mark Kamine, who worked as a locations manager on HBO’s hit series The Sopranos, has released a new book where he shares supposed details of star James Gandolfini’s behavior on set and his various personal issues.
In My Life On Set with ‘The Sopranos’ and in the Film Industry, released Tuesday, February 6, Kamine says that Gandolfini’s addiction issues and “apparent discomfort with fame” began to affect his behavior on the show from season five onwards.
As per MensJournal, Kamine claimed the Tony Soprano actor’s problems became evident while shooting the episode “Pie-O-My,” [the book references this as Season 5, but it was a Season 4 episode)]] in which his character becomes obsessed with horse betting. Kamine stated that after the shoot was over, Gandolfini and other crew members would bet on horses or visit Atlantic City.
“I am at the hotel bar when the crew member closest to Jim asks if I want to go down to Atlantic City with Jim and a few others. It’s over an hour away. I decline,” Kamine recalled. “The next morning, I’m not surprised when Jim cannot be roused.”
Kamine claimed Gandolfini showed up four hours later “cursing his way through his half-learned lines, doing take after take, drinking coffees and bottles of water,” noting the actor was “alternatively sheepish and churlish, the way he always is when he f***s up.”
The author also alleged that Gandolfini once forgot the homeowner of the private residence used as the Sopranos’ home. “This is five seasons in,” Kamine wrote. “Jim has been to the house dozens of times [and] had many conversations with the man standing in front of him. Jim interrupts him to say, with more than a little regret, ‘I’m really sorry, but my memory’s kinda shot, and I don’t remember, who are you?'”
“To have no clue who the owner of the Soprano house is [gave] me a glimpse into the extent of his personal struggles,” Kamine added.
(Credit: ©HBO / courtesy Everett Collection)
Kamine said Gandolfini’s behavior was hardest on Edie Falco, who played his wife, Carmela Soprano. In his book, he claimed Gandolfini was flustered by Falco, who was always “fully prepared, always amazingly and instantly in character. She [was] nothing but an admirable on-set presence throughout the entire run of the show.”
He continued, “Jim seems in awe of it and frustrated by her ready access to convincing emotion. He often gets to set not quite in character, cursing himself mid-scene, calling on the script supervisor to feed him lines.”
Falco herself has talked highly of Gandolfini in the past, noting that the sudden fame and success tied to The Sopranos both shocked them.
“We were all so young, and we were all like deer in the headlights a little bit with the attention we were getting,” she said in a 2021 interview with The New Yorker.
“[Jim and I] had such a strangely specific, similar way that we work and a similar background,” she continued. “We were just really regular middle-class, suburban kids that were never supposed to become famous actors. My interpretation is that the whole time, he was, like, ‘What the hell is going on?'”
Falco added, “[Jim] was totally un-actor-y, and was incredibly self-deprecating. And he was a real soul mate in that regard.”
Kamine went on to say that HBO, Sopranos creator David Chase, and other crew members tolerated Gandolfini’s problems because he was the star of the show. But he did claim HBO “[added] a clause making him responsible for shoot-day costs if he misses work due to excesses of consumption.”
This isn’t the first time someone has spoken about Gandolfini’s alleged on-set issues. In James Andrew Miller’s 2021 book, Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers, it’s claimed the actor had “disruptive disappearances that resulted in halted production, costing HBO several million dollars,” per Vulture.
And, after Gandolfini’s death of a heart attack in 2013, GQ published an article about the time the Emmy-winner disappeared for a number of days in 2002, causing production to pause until he could be found.
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