Tony Sirico was ‘horrified’ by the initial script for ‘The Sopranos’ and successfully pressed for changes

Tony Sirico had some firm rules when it came to his lover the Sopranos Character and he will not compromise. In fact, he was so upset by a single word in the script for the classic HBO series that he pushed for a rare script change.

The fan-favorite actor passed away on Friday. He was 79 years old.

Sirico played the Sopranos Like “Paulie Walnuts” Gualtieri, a New Jersey gangster who was as deadly as he was mean and nasty.

on your old popular podcast talking about sopranosCo-hosts and alumni Steve Schirripa and Michael Imperioli once spoke about Sirico bothering to refer to Paul in Season 1 Episode 11, “Nobody Knows Anything”.

“One of the only times an actor has influenced a script change and it wasn’t even his line,” began Imperioli, creating a moment. “Makaziani [John Heard] He didn’t like Paul. In the original script, he said he didn’t like Paulie. Paul was a bully. Tony Sirico read this and was horrified and very angry that Paul was being labeled a bully. [He] he was [episode writer] franc [Renzulli]maybe david [Chase]And he said, “Paul is not a bully! I don’t like! So they took notes, thought about it, and said, “What about the psychopath?” And Tony Sirico said, “Okay.”

Imperioli reiterated that this was one of the few times an actor was able to influence a script change.

Another popular anecdote that has circulated over the years is that Sirico agreed to do the series before Paul became “The Mouse”, aka a government informant, because the actor had a criminal record and took it seriously. This is probably correct, as Schirripa noted that Sirico said, “I will never play a mouse.”