The late actor James Gandolfini, best known for his starring role as Tony Soprano in the hit HBO series The Sopranos, once was so upset with Harvey Weinstein that he was ready to give him an old fashion beat down.
Sopranos co-stars Steve Schirripa and Michael Imperioli were recently guests on the Joe Rogan Experience, where they recalled their time with Gandolfini on the highly acclaimed HBO series and what went on after the show ended. Gandolfini died back in 2013 at age 51. Imperioli and Schirripa now host their own podcast titled Talking Sopranos.
Schirripa, who played Bobby Baccalieri, remembered a time when Gandolfini wanted to beat up Weinstein. Schirripa told Rogan that his friend and co-star refused to be a guest on late-night talk shows because he believed he wasn’t “interesting.” He only ever did one sit-down interview on 60 Minutes.
Gandolfini also acted in movies such as the 2012 Brad Pitt film Killing Them Softly, which was distributed by Harvey Weinstein’s The Weinstein Co.
While in his trailer one day with some of the actors from Sopranos, Schirripa remembered Weinstein nagging Gandolfini about appearing on The Late Show With David Letterman to promote the film.
“He said, ‘Harvey Weinstein keeps calling, he wants me to do Letterman, and I said no,'” Schirripa said. “And he got f***ing nasty with Jim. And Jim said, ‘I will beat the f*** out of Harvey Weinstein! He f***ing calls me again; I will beat the f*** out of him! For the money he paid me, I’m not f***ing doing it!’ Swear to God. And this is before all the Harvey Weinstein s*** when he was still king s***,” Schirripa said.
However, the beat down never came to fruition, and Gandolfini never did the talk show.
