He said fuggedaboudit.
“Sopranos” actor and producer David Chase has confirmed rumors that James Gandolfini has been “missing” since filming the crime drama.
Chase addressed the reports and opened up about his working relationship with late Tony Soprano actor during an interview with the Guardian published Friday.
“Fortunately, I wasn’t the one who dealt with him dying,” he explained. That was Ilene Landress, our manager.
However, the 80-year-old Emmy winner also admitted that Gandolfini was not always happy filming “The Sopranos,” which aired on HBO for six seasons from 1999 to 2007.
“I mean, he asked to meet me a few times, once on the banks of the Hudson River when he didn’t want to go to work, and he wasn’t very happy,” Chase told the outlet.
He added, “This happened three or four times, and we talked and talked, but I never had to find out where he was.”
Reports that Gandolfini would lose the “Sopranos” set first surfaced in James Bailey’s 2025 documentary on the late actor, “Gandolfini: Jim, Tony and the Life of a Legend.”
Phil Abraham, the show’s cinematographer, told Bailey that Gandolfini’s absence became such a problem that the network began charging the actor hundreds of thousands of dollars every time he didn’t show up to work.
“I can’t say I’ve ever been on a show where something like that has been done, but this was a different beast,” explained Abraham.
“At one point, HBO was charging him a whopping 250 a day,” the singer added. “And he was like, ‘F–k. I can’t go to work.’ Now we knew, he’s not the only one who makes a fuss and drinks a lot, and he doesn’t wake up because he doesn’t want to wake up. No, it was deeper than that.”
Like Abraham, Chase admitted that the Gandolfini issues had nothing to do with the show itself.
“He never refused to do anything,” said Chase. “He never said, ‘I’ll stand in my trailer, and when you’re ready to shoot it the way I want, come and get me.’ That didn’t happen.”
Gandolfini, who went on to win three Emmys for his performance as Tony Soprano, tragically died of a heart attack in June 2013 while on vacation in Rome. He was 51 years old.
He talked about “The Sopranos” and how he felt “crazy” during a candid interview with NJ.com years ago in 2001, when he was between Seasons 3 and 4.
“Oh, I’m not sane at all when I’m doing the show,” he said during the interview. “I’m completely crazy doing the show. But my family, my friends – I have good friends – they all help me.”
He added, “I’ve been successful in recent years, so I’m not under the illusion of what it’s all about. Well, I guess I’ve got the wrong idea. But you know, it’s really a job. You work hard, and you get a little tired, but that’s it.
Mark Kamine, who worked as a location expert on “The Sopranos,” explained how Gandolfini’s demons caused chaos in the final season of the HBO show in his controversial book, “On Locations: Lessons Learning from My Life On Set with The Sopranos and in the Film Industry.”
“I was in a hotel bar when a staff member close to Jim asked me if I wanted to go down to Atlantic City with Jim and a few others.” It takes more than an hour. The next morning, I’m not surprised Jim couldn’t wake up.”
Kamine went on to write that Gandolfini finally showed himself beginning to “curse in his half-learned way, taking after drink, drinking coffee and bottles of water, in a sheepish and sensual way, the way he always is when he smokes.”
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