There was no decisive moment, no seismic shift, no ceremony when James Gandolfini put “The Sopranos” behind him. But he has. Comfortably.
“I was told that it would be a transition,” he says and shakes his head. “Not much. It’s very calming to move on.”
Gandolfini, of course, had played gangster-in-therapy Tony Soprano — earning raves, clout and unsought celebrity — since the HBO drama premiered in January 1999.
“The character has been with me for so long,” he says, “it’s a relief to let him go.”
No wonder. For 86 episodes, Gandolfini submerged himself in that fiendish, tormented character. He channeled the dark world of “Sopranos” creator David Chase. He was regularly summoned to his own psychic danger zone. All in all, the experience was “wearing,” he says.
There also was a physical toll. “The Sopranos” revolves around Tony, which meant Gandolfini had an exhausting workload.
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