[3] James Gandolfini was invited to audition for the part of Tony Soprano after casting director Susan Fitzgerald saw a short clip of his performance in the 1993 film True Romance, ultimately receiving the role ahead of several other actors due to his physically large stature and acting abilities.
[5] Series creator David Chase invited Steven Van Zandt, a guitarist in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, to audition for the role of Tony.
[11] As methods to focus anger into his performances, Gandolfini 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.
[14] In adulthood, Tony recalls how Johnny used Janice as a cover for attending meetings with criminal associates at a children's amusement park, leading him to assume she was his father's favorite child.
Tony has a troubled relationship with Janice, due to her flighty and impulsive nature, which leads to her constantly relying on him for financial and emotional support.
The two Tonys spent summers at the farm of their uncle Pat Blundetto, a former DiMeo soldier allowed to retire from the Mafia due to chronic illness.
Tony was part of an unofficial crew of young criminals consisting of childhood friends Silvio Dante, Ralph Cifaretto and Giacomo "Jackie" Aprile, Sr.
It is also implied that this burst of rage could have been fueled by anger over Ralph's brutal murder of stripper Tracee, considering Tony uttered "She was a beautiful, innocent creature.
Tony looks at the baby seat on the backseat of the SUV which had been destroyed by a tree branch, closes his phone, and suffocates Christopher by holding his nose shut so that he chokes to death on his blood.
When Meadow is out for dinner with her "mystery" boyfriend Patrick Parisi, New York mob member Salvatore "Coco" Cogliano walks up to the table and makes remarks about her looks and how "Tony must love tucking you in at night".
Tony viciously pistol-whips Coco several times with a snubnosed revolver and warns Butch at gunpoint to shut up and remain seated at his table.
is released from a mental health ward, Tony and Carmela dissuade him from joining the Army and persuade him instead to become involved in a film bankrolled by Carmine Lupertazzi Jr., with the possibility of opening a club.
Over the course of the show he is seen to enjoy AC/DC, Deep Purple, Eagles, Eric Clapton, Jefferson Airplane, Jethro Tull, Journey, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pink Floyd, Rush, Steely Dan, The Clash, The Chi-Lites, The Lost Boys, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, and Van Morrison.
Despite remarking about the dangers of drug use to his children and some of his fellow mobsters, Tony engages in recreational use multiple times in the latter half of the series, doing lines of cocaine with Adriana, and smoking marijuana and using peyote on a trip to Las Vegas.
His mistresses have been, in chronological order, of Russian (Irina and later Svetlana), Italian (Gloria Trillo), Italian-Cuban (Valentina La Paz), and Jewish descent (Julianna Skiff).
After extensive testing that includes an MRI scan and blood work, no physical cause can be found, so Dr. Cusamano refers Tony to psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi.
When the family visits Green Grove, a retirement community where Tony is trying to place his mother, Livia's derisive outburst prompts a second panic attack.
Melfi theorizes that Isabella was an idealized maternal figure that Tony's subconscious produced because he was deeply upset about his own mother's actions at the time.
In "I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano", Tony abruptly ends his therapy and persuades Dr. Melfi to go into hiding when he discovers that Uncle Junior has found out about their sessions.
In the premiere of the sixth season, "Members Only", Junior Soprano, suffering from dementia, believes Tony to be Gennaro "Little Pussy" Malanga, and shoots him in the abdomen.
In the sixth episode of season 6, part 2, "Kennedy and Heidi", Tony sustains minor injuries in a car accident that seriously injures his nephew, Christopher Moltisanti.
In "Funhouse", an extended dream sequence exposes many of Tony's subconscious thoughts and feelings through symbolic and sometimes bizarre events: he attempts suicide to preempt a doctor's diagnosis of early death by dousing himself in gasoline and lighting himself on fire; he witnesses himself shooting Paulie Walnuts to death during a card game; he has an innuendo-laden conversation with Dr. Melfi while sporting a prominent erection, and a fish that speaks with the voice of Big Pussy confirms his suspicions that the longtime friend and soldier is a federal informant.
In an article for the Los Angeles Times, Chris Lee referred to Tony Soprano as a "cultural sensation" who became the "unlikeliest of sex symbols."
On the importance of Gandolfini's performance, Lee stated: "He forever rejiggered television's fascination with morally challenged antiheroes and less-than-physically-perfect protagonists.
Wish fulfillment has always been at the queasy heart of the mobster genre, the longing for a life outside the bounds of convention, mingled with the conflicted desire to see the perpetrator punished for the same transgression.
"[18] The final scene of "Made in America" became the subject of much discussion, controversy, and analysis after its original broadcast; however, Chase consistently refused to give any definitive answers.
[23][24] During a November 2021 interview with Hollywood Reporter, Chase made comments which seemed to confirm Tony Soprano was killed at the end of the final episode.
TV Guide columnist Matt Roush stated, "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, honed his craft as a writer on The Sopranos)."
Similar testimonials were included by his co-stars and colleagues; Bryan Cranston stated that his Breaking Bad character, Walter White, would not have existed without Tony Soprano.
Although many of those who watched and wrote about TV had got this message much earlier, the remarkable and sustained range of Gandolfini's portrayal of Tony Soprano played a major part in ending any remaining inferiority complex about the medium.