Actor Steve Shirripa from The Sopranos: Inside one of the greatest shows in TV history

Buzz Knight:

I’m Buzz Knight, the host of Takin’ a Walk, music history on foot. Follow us on Apple podcast, Spotify, TuneIn, iHeart or wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a review as well. On this episode, we have an actor who is part of a TV series that captivated us for many years, Steve Schirripa. Best known for portraying Bobby Baccalieri on The Sopranos. He’s also been part of Blue Bloods and he hosts two investigative discovery series as well. And he, along with Vincent Pastore, otherwise known as Big Pussy and Michael Imperioli, otherwise known as Christopher Moltisanti, are playing theaters across the country, including April 1st at The Strand in Providence. Welcome Steve Schirripa to Takin’ a Walk.

Steve Schirripa:

Buzz, how you doing pal? How are you?

Buzz Knight:

I’m doing excellent. I feel like I know you from all of the time that you’ve spent in my living room over the years.

Steve Schirripa:

Maybe you do, Buzz.

Buzz Knight:

So what about Steve is similar to Bobby Baccalieri, anything?

Steve Schirripa:

Yeah, I think I’m a family guy and Bobby was certainly a family guy. Cared about his kids, cared about his wife, so we certainly have that in common. Steve is much smarter than Bobby, thank goodness. And Bobby was a nice guy and he kind of fell into that world. His father was in it and he fell into it. I don’t know if he would’ve been a wise guy if it wasn’t for his dad, but yeah, I’d say being family guys.

Buzz Knight:

Do you pinch yourself just realizing that you were part of something that was so frigging special with The Sopranos?

Steve Schirripa:

Well, yeah, I mean, it’s hard to get on any TV show period. Even the worst show, people have no idea. People have no idea. Even the worst show that you go, this stinks, I hate this show. The work that goes into that and how hard it is to get on that show as an actor. And then to be lucky enough and in the right place, right time and prepared. And lucky enough to be on that show, which is one of the greatest, if not the greatest show in TV history is something.

Yeah, I very much am aware of how lucky I am and how things line up in the universe because I came to New York for a wedding, I auditioned then… I don’t come to New York for that wedding and we’re probably not talking right now Buzz. So it’s kind of like that. But yeah, I absolutely pinched myself and it’s still going and just to be a part of that… And it was an incredible experience all the way around. And not only being on the show, I mean as the years went on, my character got bigger and bigger. And here I am playing with these guys that I watched on TV. A little bit of a outer body experience.

Buzz Knight:

Lightning in a bottle, and you guys all on the cast seem to just really enjoy each other. And now to this day, you’re having fun with Vincent Pastore and Michael Imperioli going around and having this inside conversation about The Sopranos. You’re having a blast, aren’t you?

Steve Schirripa:

Oh, it’s great. We’ve been doing it for years, different versions of it. And now we do it, we do it about once a month. It’s a comedy driven show. We show clips, we show slides, we tell stories, behind the scenes stories that you only know if you were there. We take questions from the audience. We have a comedian, Joey Kola opens the show or he asks us some questions, popular questions that we answer. We tell stories and it’s a lot of fun. Because every show is different every night. And we’ve been packing them in. We sell out most places and we’ve been doing it for a number of years. We went to Australia, we did a seven city tour there, and we’re going to be in Boston, March 11th and then Providence, April 1st.

Buzz Knight:

Oh man, it sounds like so much fun. So I have to ask you, the soundtrack to The Sopranos and the music was just… Like the whole show, it was just crafted so tremendously and the way some of these songs just were unearthed or certainly for me newly discovered or rediscovered songs like Living on a Thin Line by The Kinks. And of course the theme Woke up This Morning from A3. I remember Space Invaders from the Pretenders, Rambling Rose from Nat King Cole, so many of them. So as a cast member, when did you finally see the music scoring piece take shape? Did you know along the way these songs…

Steve Schirripa:

No. Absolutely not. Not until you watched the show on a Sunday night. We were not privy to any of that. I watched a show on Sunday like everyone else. David Chase and a producer named Martin Bruestle, who was in charge of that. David Chase is a musical savant. He played, I believe, drums as a kid. And he is a… That is his world. And by the end of the show, the budget for music was half a million dollars a show.

Buzz Knight:

Oh wow.

Steve Schirripa:

Which is unheard of. And he got what he wanted. I mean, obviously this is what he wanted. This is how it was. We had interviewed Martin Bruestle about the music on our podcast. We have, well, it’s over now, but it’s still out there, Talking Sopranos. Me and Michael Imperioli had a podcast that did like 250,000 people an episode. And he talked about the music and there was a lot. It was not easy, it was very tedious and which one, what to use, including Don’t Stop Believing At the End. There was numerous choices for that. So the music played a huge part of the success of the show.

Buzz Knight:

And you don’t think of these songs without thinking of The Sopranos, right. I mean, really.

Steve Schirripa:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Buzz Knight:

By the way, I love the podcast that you guys did. I think it was spectacular.

Steve Schirripa:

Yeah, thank you.

Buzz Knight:

So then our brother from another mother, Steven Van Zandt, how special was it being with Steven and of course Silvio Dante on The Sopranos?

Steve Schirripa:

Well, Stevie’s a terrific guy. Just as nice a guy as you could find. Very generous guy. And when we went back to watch the shows after I hadn’t watched him in so many years, I appreciated his performance and his character so much more. He was so good. And Silvio was the glue that kept the crew together. He was the smart one. He gave good advice. He was very smart. Of course, he was a murderer, but he was smart. He thought things out. He was the perfect [inaudible 00:08:23] to Tony Soprano as he used to Bruce Springsteen.

Buzz Knight:

Yep, that’s right. Absolutely. I love it. I think, boy, the character he played was just so spectacular. And he is a great guy. Super sweet. And then please tell me how it was working with the late Jimmy Gandolfini.

Steve Schirripa:

Jim’s a terrific guy. He is nicer guy, as great an actor as he was, was an even a nicer guy. Very generous. I talk about that in the show, how generous he was to all of us. And he paid off people’s mortgages and he gave people money, people that he didn’t even know and he did it anonymously. Just a wonderful guy. Just a lot of fun. We had a lot of laughs together. I miss him.

Buzz Knight:

Were you in awe of just being on set with him performing?

Steve Schirripa:

No. You can’t be in awe of someone when you’re acting opposite them, that’s not going to work. I mean, I certainly appreciated his stuff. He was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. But when you’re on a set and you’re working, you can’t think of those terms or you’ll never get anything done.

Buzz Knight:

You right. And then you’ve migrated off to other great work, Blue Bloods, and also you’ve got a couple of Discovery series, investigative discovery shows.

Steve Schirripa:

I did. I created a bunch of shows for them and I’ve been on Blue Bloods for eight years and I got to work later on this afternoon. It’s a wonderful show. I’ve done over 127 episodes of that show, more than double The Sopranos. And we shoot here in New York and that’s a wonderful cast and just happy to be a part of that great show. And I was on another series with Molly Ringwald years ago, right after The Sopranos. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve been working steady for 23 years and we’ll see how long we can keep going.

Buzz Knight:

And who’s been most influential to you as an actor, as you’ve studied acting and looked to kind of create your own voice?

Steve Schirripa:

Really no one. I mean, I talk to Michael Imperioli, we’re close friends and I talk to him. I’m not a very actory guy, like a lot of people are. There’s a lot of actory people that don’t work. They just act that way. I talk to Michael a lot. I was in a movie that he directed and wrote, and so I go to him. We talk about stuff, otherwise, I just do my work. I have had two great acting coaches over the years, Richard Scanlon and then JoAnna Beckson, and I just kind of do my thing Buzz. I don’t talk about it. When you go… You’d be surprised, when you go on auditions or you’re in a room with a group of actors, you’ll be surprised how everyone’s trying to outdo each other. Especially actors that don’t work that much.

Buzz Knight:

Yes. Well, I have to tell you, you make it all look very easy, and I know it’s not easy, and I’m so grateful for the work that you’ve done and continue to do, and I appreciate you being on Takin’ a Walk.

Steve Schirripa:

Thank you very much, Buzz. Yeah, good luck to you and we’ll talk again. You take care.

Buzz Knight:

Thank you.

Speaker 3:

Takin’ a Walk with Buzz Knight is available on Spotify, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Buzz Knight is an established media executive with a long history of content creation and multi-platform distribution.

After a successful career as a Radio Executive, he formed Buzz Knight Media which focuses on strategic guidance and the development of new original content.