At his father’s request Michael Gandolfini wouldn’t go to hollywood. But after the Sopranos star suddenly died of a heart attack while on a family vacation, Michael signed up for acting classes to help him heal. And that was all it took to realize that he would carry on his father’s dream like this. Well, as fate would have it, as a young Tony Soprano he will star in the prequel to the HBO drama The Many Saints on Newark.
However, since he had never seen an episode before – Michael was born the year The Sopranos debuted in 1999 – his preparation to sit down and study his father meant a painful but also cathartic experience. In one scene, “he sits by his son’s bed and says, ‘I couldn’t ask for a better son,'” Michael, 22, recalled Esquire. “I just knew he was talking to me.”
