The Night Tony Soprano Disappeared

An excerpt from Brett Martin’s book Difficult Men. Sopranos creator and show runner David Chase and actor James Gandolfini were talented, complicated, and, at times, difficult men who created an iconic TV show:

“The massive job was made possible at least in part by creating a world in which other people managed the rest of his life. When the show became a success, Chase moved into the penthouse of the Fitzpatrick Manhattan hotel on Lexington Avenue, with the hotel staff at his disposal. He dined at the same restaurant several times a week, alternating periods at Daniel and CafĂ© Boulud. (The ease of getting restaurant reservations, he said later, only half joking, was one of the major reasons to keep extending The Sopranos’ run.) At work, he withdrew behind levels of gatekeepers. Chase’s assistant learned to institute a ‘five-minute rule’ whenever bad news was delivered: the amount of time needed for the desk-kicking and yelling to stop and a more rational response to commence. Not that there was a lot of bad news. ‘Nobody said no to David. Ever,’ she says. ‘Except Jim [Gandolfini]. And even he said no only by not showing up.'”

Source: GQ
Published: Jun 20, 2013
Length: 21 minutes (5,467 words)
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