Gandolfini is also known for his roles on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire (1992), On the Waterfront (1995), and God of Carnage (2009), the latter earning him a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination.

He also produced the war documentaries Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq (2007) and Wartorn: 1861–2010 (2011) as well as the HBO film Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie nomination.

[3] His mother, Santa (née Penna), was an Italian high school food service worker who was born in the U.S. and raised in Naples.

[22] One of his earlier major film roles was that of Virgil, a brutal mob enforcer, in the romantic thriller True Romance (1993).

[25] Gandolfini was subsequently cast as insurance salesman and Russian mobster Ben Pinkwater in the action film Terminal Velocity (1994).

[32] In 1995, television writer and producer David Chase pitched the original idea for The Sopranos to networks such as Fox and CBS before HBO picked it up.

[34] Gandolfini was invited to audition for the part of Tony Soprano after casting director Susan Fitzgerald saw a short clip of his performance in True Romance, ultimately receiving the role ahead of several other actors including Steven Van Zandt and Michael Rispoli.

[35][36] In a 2013 interview with The Guardian, Chase revealed that Gandolfini stopped and left in the middle of his audition before finishing it in his garage later that night.

[41] As methods to focus anger into his performances, Gandolfini had said he would deliberately hit himself on the head, stay up all night to evoke the desired reaction, drink several cups of coffee, or walk around with a rock in his shoe.

[42][43] He also won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series along with the rest of the cast.

[46] Gandolfini underwent knee surgery on June 2, 2006, which pushed the production of the second part of the final season back by several months.

[56][57] After the finale of The Sopranos, Gandolfini, along with Paramount Pictures executive Alex Ryan, founded production company Attaboy Films.

[61] He returned to the stage in 2009, starring in Yasmina Reza's play God of Carnage on Broadway acting alongside Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis, and Jeff Daniels.

[69] The film, titled Wartorn: 1861–2010, featured interviews with American military officials on their views of PTSD and how they are trying to help soldiers affected by it.

[75] In 2012, Gandolfini reunited with The Sopranos creator David Chase for Not Fade Away, a music-driven production set in 1960s New Jersey, and the latter's feature film debut.

HBO reversed its decision a few months later, and the show was green-lit, with Gandolfini still set to star; however, he died before filming began.

[91] Gandolfini maintained ties with his hometown of Park Ridge, New Jersey, and supported its Octoberwoman Foundation for Breast Cancer Research.

[92] He previously lived in New York City and owned a piece of land on the Lake Manitoba Narrows in Canada,[93] then moved to a 34-acre (14 ha) property in Chester Township, New Jersey.

[95] Brett Martin said of Gandolfini in a 2013 GQ article, "In interviews, which [he] did his very best to avoid, [he] would often fall back on some version of 'I'm just a dumb, fat guy from Jersey'.

Producers and location managers of The Sopranos have noted that his misuse of substances led to missed shoots, concerns about Gandolfini's health, and a (failed) intervention.

[110] His funeral service was held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City's Morningside Heights neighborhood on June 27.

Columnist Matt Roush cited Gandolfini's work as Tony Soprano as an influence on subsequent cable TV protagonists, saying, "Without Tony, there's no Vic Mackey of The Shield, no Al Swearengen of Deadwood, no Don Draper of Mad Men (whose creator, Matthew Weiner, learned his trade as a writer on The Sopranos).

"[116] Similar testimonials were given by his co-stars and colleagues, including Edie Falco, who expressed shock and devastation at his death;[117] Sopranos creator David Chase, who praised him as a "genius";[118] Bryan Cranston, who stated that his Breaking Bad character Walter White would not have existed without Tony Soprano;[119] and Gandolfini's three-time co-star Brad Pitt, who expressed admiration for Gandolfini as a "ferocious actor, a gentle soul and a genuinely funny man".

[120] Emily Nussbaum, writing for The New Yorker, said that "nobody could be under any illusion about what a television actor was capable of" after Gandolfini's portrayal of Tony Soprano.

[122] Mark Lawson, writing for The Guardian, said that Gandolfini's portrayal as Soprano "represents one of the greatest achievements" of television.

Signs were installed at the intersection of Park Avenue and Kinderkamack Road at a public ceremony attended by several of his former Sopranos co-stars.

[135] In 2024, in the weeks leading up to the release of his longtime passion project Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola revealed to Rolling Stone that Gandolfini gave him a lot of great suggestions for the film back when he read for the role of Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who was ultimately portrayed by Giancarlo Esposito, back when Coppola did a reading of an early draft in 2001.