How Tony Soprano Changed The Face of Television
Before James Gandolfini, many Hollywood actors saw TV acting as lesser.
In a January 2019 interview on the Dan Patrick Show, Bryan Cranston said that he doesn’t think Breaking Bad would have been made without The Sopranos.
“I think what David Chase was able to do in creating a character like Tony Soprano created the space for someone like Walter White to exist.” Cranston said.
Cranston says that what people root for is humanity, despite the fact that both protagonists and one-man leads in their respective shows, Tony Soprano and Walter White, do terrible things. They’re responsible for the deaths of a lot of people. But the audience still roots for these characters because they’re humanized, and because despite the suffering they inflict on others, they suffer themselves.
Tony Soprano has panic attacks and depression, like a lot of ordinary people. Walter White has terminal lung cancer, like a lot of ordinary people.
Vince Gilligan also acknowledges that he was inspired to make Walter White after meeting James Gandolfini, the late actor that played Soprano. Gilligan says that he once met James Gandolfini, he saw a disconnect between “the scary mob boss I had seen on TV and the warm and friendly man who played him.”…
