The series starts its fifth season with a couple of new faces, veteran actors Robert Loggia and Steve Buscemi, but how long will they last?
By ERIC DEGGANS
Published March 5, 2004
[Photos: Abbot Genser]
From left, Edie Falco, Jamie-Lynn DiScala, Robert Iler and James Gandolfini return as members of the Soprano family.
From left, Tony Sirico, Steven Van Zandt, James Gandolfini and Michael Imperioli make up the inner circle of the gang led by Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano.
Robert Loggia plays Michele “Feech” La Manna, an old-school thug recently paroled from prison.
Steve Buscemi joins the cast as an actor this season. He previously directed two episodes.
A family update
It has been 14 months since we saw Tony and Carmela's explosive argument cap The Sopranos' fourth season. So here's a handy guide to what the show's main characters face as the fifth season begins
In a career spanning 60 years, he has shared the screen with Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Tom Hanks, Nick Nolte, Julia Roberts and countless other stars.
But when the call came from series creator and producer David Chase to join the cast of HBO's Mob drama The Sopranos, Robert Loggia hesitated. He wanted to review tapes from the show's previous four seasons.
"I could see that the bar was set very high, and I had to get at that level," said Loggia, 74.
He wasn't the only one hesitating, as he discovered when he thought he'd been hired and flew to California to meet his new boss.
"I thought it was case closed when they flew me in . . . (but) it was to see if I was going to be a pain in the a-," he said, loosing the crusty laugh fans know from classic films such as Big, Jagged Edge, Prizzi's Honor and Independence Day. "Turns out, they gave me a pitch over the plate, and I thought I could hit the f--- out of the park."
That's Loggia's colorful way of noting that his turn as Michele "Feech" La Manna in the Sopranos' fifth season turned out well. La Manna is one of a group of gangsters who return to Jersey after getting paroled from prison. Dubbed "the Class of 2004" by TV reporters, they'd been serving time for racketeering convictions since the 1980s.
The story line, inspired by an article creator David Chase read in a New Jersey newspaper, allowed Sopranos producers to add two new characters to bedevil Mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini).
Besides Loggia, film actor and director Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs, Fargo) joins the series as Tony Blundetto, a cousin, old friend and former partner of Soprano, who finds the outlaw life less appealing after years behind bars.
Focused on earning his massage therapy license and driving a delivery truck, Blundetto is the kind of guy Tony Soprano would slap around if they didn't have so much shared history. Swirl in Tony's guilt over Blundetto's arrest during a heist Tony was supposed to participate in, and you have a potent mix of emotions.
Buscemi deflected questions about his character's future with a dry wit.
"I keep my head, if that's what you're (asking)," quipped Buscemi to journalists in January, joking about the dismemberment that ended the run of Joe Pantoliano's Ralph Cifaretto character.
"Both things were kind of surreal," said the actor, who directed two episodes of the series in earlier seasons (including the classic "Pine Barrens" episode). "It's very strange to watch a show that you absolutely love . . . and then you're the one that's directing it. (And) all of a sudden, being in a diner acting with Tony Soprano. . . . There's this thing where I go, "I can't believe that I'm doing this.' "
Loggia admitted similar wonderment, despite a resume that includes countless tough-guy Mafia characters and a movie that could be considered the film godfather of The Sopranos, the dark comedy Prizzi's Honor.
"I always wondered why I wasn't in The Godfather," said Loggia, a native of Staten Island, who fondly remembered how the neighborhood wiseguys used to keep crime low by throwing burglars off the rooftops of apartment buildings.
"They used to sponsor our (Little League) baseball teams . . . they backed the VFW post. . . . They were part of the fabric of society," he said. "Who handles garbage removal in New York? Who handles the linen and tableware service for restaurants? If I couldn't play Feech La Manna with my background, I couldn't play anything."
As the new season opens, La Manna, Blundetto and a host of others return from stir (that's prison, for the mob-challenged). Like Tony Soprano's Uncle Junior, La Manna is an old school thug and friend of Tony's late father who can't believe his pal's overweight son is running things.
Over the show's first four episodes, it becomes obvious that, as Loggia says, "Feech doesn't have too much respect for the fat a- kid. I was supposed to take over the operation, not him."
But the way Tony handles La Manna proves one of the slickest plot points in a Sopranos season that starts slowly, weighted down by the separation of Tony from his wife, Carmela.
As it is with La Manna, Loggia says he knows age is slowing him down.
"I'm 74 now, and 74 ain't fun," he said. "You've lost a step - a few steps - and it's tough to accept that. That's what Feech is . . . he's tough and he wants to fit in again."
Chase, who has said twice in the past that he was going to conclude The Sopranos, confirmed in January that next year's 10-episode sixth season will definitely, positively, mark the show's end.
"Last year, or whenever it was, I went away and tried to think about the ending and the final act of the show. . . . It turned out to be just too much for five seasons," the executive producer said, noting that the sixth season will probably cover material originally planned for a much-rumored Sopranos movie. "It just seemed like 10 (extra episodes) would probably do it."
Diplomatic as they are in public, the show's stars seem ready for their final Sopranos curtain call.
"I'm not ready to say goodbye to the character, but I'm not going to miss him. Does that makes sense?" Gandolfini said in January. "I want to end this the right way, and I know that (Chase) has something in mind . . . and I trust him completely."
The famously tight-lipped Chase did dish on a few details, saying the native Italian bodyguard who nearly romanced Carmela last season (Federico Castelluccio's Furio Giunta) is out of the picture, along with the escaped Russian mobster who lent so much emotional weight to the "Pine Barrens" episode.
But true to form, neither character's story is wrapped up onscreen.
It's part of what makes The Sopranos so compelling to some and infuriating to others: What's unsaid is often as important as what is said.
Consider how Chase deals with Tony's rivals.
David Proval's Richie Aprile and Pantoliano's Cifaretto both met unexpected ends and rarely proved a true foil for Tony Soprano. Expect the same for Loggia's La Manna, who gets a few explosive scenes as a brutal thug trying to take over the lawn care business in a neighborhood frequented by Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri (Tony Sirico).
But Loggia remains hopeful that Feech will return when he - and viewers - least expect.
"The entire cast generated so much feeling for me. . . . It rejuvenated me," he said. "The challenge was to be gold. My adrenaline was going, and I didn't want to drop the ball. Now, it's just time to see how the people will react."
AT A GLANCE: The Sopranos returns for its fifth season at 9 p.m. Sunday on HBO. Grade: A. Rating: TV-MA (mature audiences).
