The Sopranos‘ actor Lorraine Bracco has opened up about her character’s “abrupt” ending in the popular TV series.
The actress portrayed the role of Dr. Jennifer Melfi, the psychiatrist of Mafia boss Tony Soprano (played by the late James Gandolfini). In an interview with The Independent, Bracco discussed her character’s sudden ending.
In season six episode 20 titled “The Blue Comet”, Melfi decides to sever her ties with with the mobster after being berated by her colleagues at a dinner party. She served as Soprano’s therapist for the entirety of the series.
“I never did like the way he ended our session together,” Bracco told the outlet. “I thought it was very abrupt. They spent years together! I think she was fond of him. She wanted to make him better.”
She also opened up about the character itself saying: “One of the things that was very important – and unusual – was that she was this very educated Italian woman. You never see that! So that was something that propelled me in creating her.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Bracco also discussed her character’s most controversial storyline in which she is raped and decides to not seek revenge via Tony Soprano. “I was very, very upset with that. I didn’t understand it at all in the beginning,” she explained. “In fact, I read half the script and called David, and I said, ‘Why are you hurting her? Of all people, why would you do this?’ I said, I’m so upset. I couldn’t even finish the script.’ And he said, ‘Well, could you finish it and then call me back?’”
She continued: “I was annoyed to death. And then when I got to the last word, it really made me stop and think, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ And I realised it was the fork in the road of morality for Dr Melfi. And I called David back. I said, ‘OK, I thought about it. I get it. Goodbye.’ And that was that.”
In other news, it was recently revealed that Gandolfini almost walked out on The Sopranos following a failed drugs intervention, according to those behind the show.
Speaking in new documentary Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos, HBO CEO Chris Albrecht recalled the actor’s struggles with substance abuse during production.
“We did an intervention with him at my apartment in New York,” he said. “That was to try to get him to go to a facility for rehab. We’d had a lot of friction by that point, and the ruse was that I was inviting Jimmy over so we could talk things through and kind of clear the air.”
“He walked in, and he saw everybody sitting there, and he went, ‘Aw, fuck this.’ And he walked out,” Albrecht added. “Everybody went, ‘Jimmy, Jimmy!’ And he turned to me and he went, ‘Fire me,’ and he left.”
Back in June, the cast of The Sopranos reunited at the Tribeca Film Festival to mark the show’s 25th anniversary as well as the premiere of the documentary.
Meanwhile, Sopranos star Jamie-Lynn Sigler – who played Tony Soprano’s daughter Meadow on the series – recently revealed that Gandolfini quietly donated to MS charities in her name after she was diagnosed with the disease in 2002.
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