Person
James Gandolfini
Arts, Music & Media
Writing & NarrativeWho is James Gandolfini in the Agency editorial?
James Gandolfini was an American actor, best known for playing Tony Soprano in the HBO series The Sopranos. In the Agency editorial he gives Issue.16 its name: the author says the real goal of that issue is to praise him. Issue.14 mentions him once, in a parenthesis, next to the death of Chester Bennington.
In short
James Gandolfini, the American actor who played Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, appears in two issues of the Agency editorial. Issue.16 carries his name and has a section devoted to him and to the character. The author credits him with making the anti-hero archetype work on television, records that he died in Italy of a heart attack at 51, and introduces him through quotations from cast members of the series (Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli, Lorraine Bracco, Steven Van Zandt and Jamie-Lynn Sigler) and from Gandolfini himself. The issue describes his effort to grasp the dark side of Tony Soprano as a sacrifice. Issue.14 names him in passing: after calling the death of Chester Bennington a huge loss for mankind, the author adds in a parenthesis that Gandolfini is a comparable loss with regard to dramaturgy.
Key facts
- Which issue is named after James Gandolfini?
- Issue.16 - Gandolfini. Its third section has his name as the heading and Tony Soprano as the subtitle, and the author states that the real goal of the issue is to praise the actor.
- How does Issue.16 introduce him?
- Through quotations. The issue reproduces what five cast members of The Sopranos said about him when he died, followed by quotations from Gandolfini himself about television, about the series and about its writing.
- How does Issue.14 mention him?
- In a parenthesis. Writing about Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, the author calls his death a huge loss for mankind and adds that it is like James Gandolfini, but with regard to dramaturgy.
Who is James Gandolfini?
James Gandolfini was an American actor, born in 1961, who died in 2013. He is known above all for the role of Tony Soprano, the mob boss at the center of The Sopranos, the HBO series created by David Chase that premiered in 1999. The dates on the card come from outside the editions and are marked for verification.
How does James Gandolfini appear in the Agency editorial?
Issue.16 opens by saying that before being about James Gandolfini, storytelling, TV, dramaturgy and death, it is first about ancestry, understood as the people of reference who made the reader who they are. In the section on heroes and villains, the author writes that the anti-hero was an uncommon archetype until Gandolfini made it right, and links that to the period known as the Golden Age of Television. The section that bears his name records that he died in Italy of a heart attack at 51, and presents him through the words of his colleagues in the cast and through his own quotations.
The same issue discusses how closely his image stayed tied to Tony Soprano. It cites IndieWire headlines about him, one about HBO paying him not to star in The Office, and it describes as a sacrifice his effort to grasp the dark side of the character, reproducing a quotation in which he says he would probably not play a Mafia character again because the violence was starting to bother him personally. In Issue.14 the name appears only once, in the parenthesis about Chester Bennington; the Portuguese version of that issue also carries a reference card that points to Issue.16.
Source editions
Where this entry comes from in the Agency editorial.