-Our next guest is a talented actor you've seen in
"The Deuce" and "Ocean's Eight."
He stars in "The Many Saints of Newark," which is in theaters
and begins streaming on HBO Max October 1st.
Let's take a look. -♪ When will I...♪
-[ Sighs ]
-Hey, Sil, I need to talk to my Uncle Dickie.
-He's not here.
-His car's here.
-Battery's dead.
-You know where he is?
-Who am I? Rand McNally?
-Please welcome to the show Michael Gandolfini.
♪♪
[ Applause ]
-Thanks so much for being here, man.
I really appreciate it. Come on up.
-Of course, thank you.
-Thanks for being here, Michael, and congrats on the film.
I really enjoyed it.
I imagine, for any young actor, it would be daunting to take on
the role of young Tony Soprano.
Plus, of course, you have the element of being, you know,
your father's part that he made famous.
-What was your -- What was the process of going through
to decide you wanted to take this on?
-Yeah, well, one of the things that I think
was equally terrifying and really helped was that
I had to audition like three times.
So it was like three months of, like --
first being like, "I don't know.
You know, I don't know Tony. I'd never seen the show.
I don't -- I want to be my own actor.
I don't really know if I can do it."
And then, as the auditions went on, I just sort of thought,
"You know, you got to do a good audition
and get in front of good people."
And I started to, like, fall in love with Tony more and more.
So by the end, when it was like, "We're going to do it,"
I loved Tony.
-That's really great. -Yeah.
-Now, this is -- You mentioned not seeing the show.
You were really young when the show started.
-Mm-hmm.
-And, of course, your dad is a completely different person
than Tony Soprano.
Did you -- Were you ever around when he was rehearsing?
Was that something you remember as a kid at all?
-I mean, not really.
I -- He was just my dad, you know?
And he -- I mean, he actually had this --
He had, like -- In his apartment, he had this bookcase.
And he would, like -- It was, like, a secret door.
And you can, like, open up this secret bookcase door,
and he'd go into his little cave and he'd close it.
And it was, like, soundproof.
So, like, that's -- I remember him going in there to, like,
run lines, and, like, him and his coach would go in there.
But, you know, I never -- I ran around set.
I got fake black eyes by the makeup crew.
And, you know, we'd be like, "Dad, look."
But besides that, I didn't really know anything.
-So, these are all, you know, characters, obviously,
from the from "The Sopranos," but none of the same actors.
So none of the people you've met over your life,
save for, you know, David Chase.
Did he -- -Yeah.
-Did you have a level of comfort being with somebody like that,
who you've known, obviously, your whole life?
-I didn't know David personally too well.
I'd known him, but there's a level of comfort as an actor
when you go -- I mean, I'm walking into your world.
I mean, he would come up and run and be like,
"You know, say this."
And, like, it'd be this amazing, beautiful, funny line
that he would just kind of come up with.
So it was a real comfort to be able to go --
I'd call it, like "The David thumbs-up."
Like, after every scene, I'd be like...
"What do you think?"
And he would just go -- give me a thumbs-up,
and I'd be happy that we got the scene.
-You are still a student at NYU. -I am.
-You got to -- You made your own major.
Is this something that NYU kids are doing these days?
-Yeah. So, you can go to Gallatin,
and you create your major.
So, I mean, people major in amazing things,
like, you know, dance mixed with, you know, politics,
and they'd do some incredible performance.
And mine's like, I just go for character study.
That's how I formed my major.
-But character study -- does that --
that's not just acting, right?
-I actually have never --
I went to Tisch for a semester and I left,
so I've never taken an acting class at NYU since.
But it's a lot of, like --
I took, like, a consumerism class to learn about
spending patterns in America.
And then I've taken filmmaking and directing.
I took a class about the history of penicillin
for my for my science credit.
So anything that has to do with sort of people, you know?
Psychology, all those sort of classes in that world.
-You probably didn't need much help
as far as acting classes went.
As a young man, I mean, I think we all remember
how you crushed Prince Charming.
I mean, just -- -Look at that hair, too.
-I mean, the hair is great, but I think that
not enough people, when they're watching people play Charming,
credit the look he gives when he's staring at the shoe.
-At the shoe. -Yeah.
-Yeah. Yeah.
-This Prince Charming might not be looking for Cinderella
as much as, like, he might have a thing about feet.
-You know, "Into the Woods" is a darker
sort of adaptation of this fairy tale,
so maybe he had some sort of foot fetish, you know?
-Your first day on set for "Many Saints" --
which, I guess, this does seem like a rite of passage
for anybody entering the sort of "Sopranos" cinematic universe --
got slapped around a little bit.
-Oh, yeah, the scene was -- It didn't end up in the movie,
but Alessandro sl-- Dickie slaps Tony,
and Tony was like, "Why did you do that?"
And then they talk a little,
and then Dickie slaps Tony again.
Tony slaps Dickie.
They fight.
Johnny breaks them up.
And then Johnny slaps Tony.
-Now, when you get slapped that many times,
how do you feel when you're told the scene got cut?
-Yeah, well, it was --
I was pretty shocked.
I mean, it was -- We also only shot that scene that day.
So it was like 12 hours of three slaps a scene.
And Bernthal was like bra--
He would be like, "You know, I'm a pro,
so, like, my slaps don't hurt, right, Mikey?"
And you don't look at The Punisher and go like,
"Eh, these slaps don't hurt at all, man.
Like, I'm totally game."
And he's, like, just hitting me hard.
Yeah, but it was -- It was great, you know?
It was, like, the rite of passage,
like you said, and it was great.
-You also -- I guess, was it your first film role
was "Ocean's Eight"?
-Yeah. Yeah.
-I mean, I think people to this day still say it's your movie.
-Yeah, exactly. It's my -- Yeah.
-I mean, a lot of Oscar winners are in it.
-Yeah. -An incredibly talented cast.
-It was amazing.
I mean, it was one of those --
You know, I played Busboy Number 2.
-Yeah, of course. We all know.
-A privilege. Exactly.
And it was just one of those things.
You get to go to a giant set and sound stage
and think like, "I cannot believe I'm here in the tux."
But that scene took four days to film.
I have like four lines in it, and it took four days.
The first day, they didn't get to it
because they were running behind, whatever.
The second day, a snowstorm hit, so we had to --
We had to go to set and drive back.
And then, the third day, something happened again.
And, finally, the fourth day, I got to deliver.
But I was, like, outside, like, really, like,
rehearsing these like four lines.
Like, I was really, like, working --
-That's a nervous -- I mean, nobody, I think,
would not be nervous amongst that group of people.
-Yeah. But it was amazing.
-You're amazing in this. Thanks so much for being here.
Congratulations so much on the film.
Thanks for making time for us. -Thank you.
-"The Many Saints of Newark"
is in theaters and on HBO Max October 1st.