On the 10 year anniversary of the late actor James Gandolfini’s (The Sopranos) passing, his cast mates from the show pay tribute to his legacy as an actor and a person. According to Deadline, former castmate Michael Imperioli (The White Lotus) dedicated an Instagram post with a picture of him and Gandolfini, the caption reading, “Batman and Robin…my favorite picture of us. And I can’t help thinking where we ended up that night and what you said. That was one for the books. It’s so very strange that it’s 10 years today since you left us. Would love to have shot one more scene or had another laugh or one more late-night chat. Forever grateful to have done so much work together, to have spent so much time in your company and for all the generosity and kindness. Miss you lots as do so many on the planet.”
Gandolfini’s onscreen wife from The Sopranos Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie) also shared her memories of the actor in an interview with Vanity Fair saying, “He didn’t let himself get bossed around by a lot of the things that I let walk me around—this good-student mentality,” Falco said. “I always had to get the lines just right and do the blocking exactly the same every time. And I would watch him, and he was following something…bigger. And deeper. If he had an impulse to say something a little different, or to change the blocking, he just did it. And I was jealous that he had somehow gotten permission from himself to do that kind of thing.”
Fellow Sopranos actor Joe Pantoliano (Memento) remarked how Gandolfini welcomed him to the show “in between takes” and, “he looked me in the eye and he said, ‘Listen, it’s an honor and a pleasure to be working with you.” Pantoliano also remarked that, “It’s very hard for an actor coming into a show—a lot of actors are day players, or they’re on an episode with two scenes. But he always went out of his way to make sure that everybody was comfortable.”