{"id":36680,"date":"2021-09-30T16:38:11","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T16:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=36680"},"modified":"2021-09-30T21:05:12","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T21:05:12","slug":"gabriella-piazza-sopranos-many-saints-of-newark","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/gabriella-piazza-sopranos-many-saints-of-newark\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabriella Piazza on Joining the Dangerous World of \u2018The Sopranos\u2019 in \u2018The Many Saints of Newark\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gabriella
Gabriella Piazza (Photo: Francis Hills)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PHOTOGRAPHER FRANCIS HILLS<\/strong>
\nHAIR MARC MENA<\/strong>
\nMAKEUP LINDSAY CULLEN<\/strong>
\nSTYLING RENEE RYAN<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a scene towards the beginning of The Many Saints of Newark<\/em> in which New Jersey mobster Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) and his wife Joanne (Gabriella Piazza) are having dinner with Dickie\u2019s father (played by Ray Liotta) and his new, much younger wife Giuseppina (Michela de Rossi). Dickie is clearly attracted to Giuseppina\u2014you could cut the oedipal tension with a knife\u2014and it\u2019s up to Joanne, herself a knockout, to put on a brave face and ignore her husband\u2019s wandering eye. Giuseppina is, after all, Dickie\u2019s stepmother, as Joanne points out with a bright, easy laugh. But there\u2019s real anxiety behind the joke, which she\u2019s deployed, presumably, to deflate her husband\u2019s interest in the younger woman.<\/p>\n

That tension is at the heart of the character for Piazza, who makes her big screen debut in the Sopranos<\/em> prequel. Set in the \u201960s and early \u201970s, the film, co-written by Sopranos <\/em>creator David Chase, explores the formative years in which a young Tony Soprano (Michael Gandolfini, playing the role originated by his late father James) was influenced by the wise guys around him\u2014particularly Dickie. But the life of a mob wife was no easier back then than it was for Carmella Soprano (played with exquisite fierceness and vulnerability by Edie Falco in the original HBO series), as Piazza points out.<\/p>\n

Ahead of The Many Saints of Newark<\/em>\u2019s premiere in theaters and on HBO Max, Piazza joined GRAZIA USA on Zoom to discuss the film, joining the world of The Sopranos<\/em> and the murky ethics of gangster movies.<\/p>\n

Were you a Sopranos<\/em> fan? Do you remember your first impression of the series? <\/strong><\/p>\n

So, I joined the hype later in life. I wasn\u2019t allowed to watch The Sopranos <\/em>growing up, or any crime drama due to my father\u2019s profession. So, I serendipitously started watching The Sopranos<\/em> right before I got this audition, and I remember being like, This is brilliant!<\/em> This show, you know, put HBO on the map. The writing and the characters and this crazy lace of drama with this underlying dark comedy was fascinating.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019d read that your father was an FBI agent. What did he think of gangster movies? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I think, for him, it just sort of romanticized the world\u2014where he was so immersed in stopping<\/em> that world. And the fact that it\u2019s heavy. There\u2019s murder, there\u2019s a lot of crime, and he was the antithesis of that. So, I think for him, letting his kids get immersed in that world while he was trying to stand for the opposite was a little iffy.<\/p>\n

\"Gabriella
Gabriella Piazza (Photo: Francis Hills)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s so interesting to me that that\u2019s part of this journey for you. If I\u2019m perfectly honest, that\u2019s always something that\u2019s in the back of my mind as well: this discomfort with glamorizing a really brutal, amoral lifestyle. Now that you\u2019ve seen the show and been a part of the movie, what\u2019s your perspective on that? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s really funny, because I grew up in this large Italian and Dominican family. And my father representing the FBI, I had that influence. But I also had my mom\u2019s very Italian side. I got the best of both worlds with my specific upbringing. With The Sopranos<\/em>, it does romanticize it, but it doesn\u2019t take away from the fact that it very much exists. The brilliance of The Sopranos<\/em> is that, really, anybody in any job anywhere has a life outside of that specific label, right? It did such an interesting and brilliant job of creating that antihero that it\u2019s inevitably wonderful. Is it necessarily the best thing to do to romanticize that specific group? [Laughs<\/em>] I don\u2019t know. But it happened and it\u2019s real, and it went on, especially in that tumultuous time in the \u201960s in Newark, that was so<\/em> present. And it really shows you what was going on with all the redlining in New York and New Jersey. This was a real thing that happened. It romanticizes [crime] in a sense, but with the prequel it really just sheds a light on what really went on.<\/p>\n

How would you describe Joanne at this earlier phase of her life? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, man. Joanne\u2026 She\u2019s quite alone! But also playing this matriarch, in a sense, of the Moltisanti household, and living up to that Italian wife narrative. At this point in her life she really wants a kid, and Dickie is out all the time. I actually had a wonderful conversation with our costume designer. We were talking about why Joanne is always in these bright<\/a>, big<\/a>, loud outfits<\/a> and colors<\/a>. And part of that was because that\u2019s really what she had. Her husband would come home and she\u2019d dress up to be ready for that dinner. Or she would go somewhere and it would be like, Oh my gosh, we\u2019re going out!<\/em> There\u2019s this sadness to her. But also, when she gets a moment to speak, she speaks. She\u2019s loud, she\u2019s there.<\/p>\n

Did you go back and watch any of the scenes from the series featuring Christopher and Joanne? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I did. And there was a lot to pull from. You see her and she\u2019s not doing so well when you first meet her. She\u2019s not the happiest. But I really actually pulled a lot from what Michael Imperioli did. Who would raise this child? What mother influence would create Christopher? So, it was a really interesting character study, because I had sort of a blank slate to play with. I learned so much from getting to play her.<\/p>\n

\"Gabriella
Gabriella Piazza (Photo: Francis Hills)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What\u2019s her marriage to Dickie Moltisanti like? <\/strong><\/p>\n

[Joanne is] definitely trying to impress [Dickie], trying to stomach that there could possibly be goomars everywhere\u2014but it\u2019s just something that you had to deal with. At the end of the day he is coming home to [Joanne], and we do have a kid together. It\u2019s playing up to that role. She loves him, but I think, just like a lot of women during that time\u2014they knew that there was a mistress. But what are you gonna do? You\u2019ve still gotta feed the kids, be there, live in that role. And that played into her sadness, but also her excitement when she was around him. She wanted to look beautiful. She wanted to be loved.<\/p>\n

Tony and Carmella\u2019s relationship was such a huge part of the series. Did you pull from that dynamic, between James Gandolfini and Edie Falco? Obviously, it\u2019s a very different time, but I wondered if Carmella in particular influenced your thinking about how a wife exits in this world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

She\u2019s my favorite part, actually. Edie Falco in this role on The Sopranos <\/em>is such an inspiration. And I think I did pull a lot from her, in the sense of, like I said earlier, you know<\/em> what\u2019s going on, and how do you live with that, still be strong and stomach<\/em> it? I think Edie just does an incredible job. That exterior, always smiling, but when they\u2019re together it\u2019s real<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Gabriella
Gabriella Piazza on the set of The Many Saints of Newark<\/i> with Michael Gandolfini and Alexandra Intrator (Photo: Jose Perez\/Bauer-Griffin\/GC Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You\u2019ve mentioned Joanne\u2019s wardrobe and self-presentation. Was there anything else that really helped you find the character? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, the crew that made this world possible helps anybody, right? One of the scenes that didn\u2019t make it in the movie, they shut down this road and had this massive parade that actually happened in Newark. A man was riding on an elephant\u2014the guy was running for mayor. And I just remember seeing all the cars and the wardrobe and watching everybody around me on set, the crew, just make that happen. You sort of feel like, Well, sh*t! I better show up here! I better bring Joanne!<\/em> So, when you\u2019re immersed in that world, it happens inevitably.<\/p>\n

And everybody\u2019s smoking! Everywhere, throughout the entire film! Vera [Farmigia\u2019s] holding a baby on her hip and she\u2019s got a cigarette in her hand which is iconic! But it happened. You just sit into all of that, and you\u2019re inspired by what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

What kind of conversations did you and the rest of the cast have with David Chase about why he wanted to revisit the world of The Sopranos<\/em> and the story he wanted to tell. <\/strong><\/p>\n

He and Lawrence Konnor spoke a lot about how they were always enamored by this character, Dickie Moltisanti, who sort of shaped and created this person that we watched year after year in The Sopranos<\/em>\u2014Tony. So, he really wanted to sink his teeth into that narrative. And Newark, NJ, was a big part of David\u2019s life growing up. He spoke a lot about that. And Alan Taylor, our director, gave us a lot of room to work with these characters, because you hadn\u2019t seen them from this era before. Yes, you know who they are when you watch the show. But we were able to play with who they were in these specific times.<\/p>\n

What does The Many Saints of Newark<\/em> show us about Tony Soprano? How does it enhance the experience of watching or having watched The Sopranos<\/em>? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I really, truly believe that this story shows the life of Tony Soprano in a different light. He\u2019s not the heavy, hard, scary guy at all. It shows a different side to him. It shows us what series of events happened to create this person that we watched on television in the show. Growing up in this tumultuous time in Newark, NJ, with all of these crazy influences around him as father figures\u2014being able to see that is just such a beautiful thing for true Sopranos<\/em> fans to watch and understand why Tony is Tony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29097,"featured_media":36684,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[38,3324,16],"yoast_head":"\nGabriella Piazza on Joining the Dangerous World of \u2018The Many Saints of Newark\u2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ahead of The Many Saints of Newark\u2019s premiere, Gabriella Piazza joined GRAZIA USA on Zoom to discuss the film, joining the world of The Sopranos and the murky ethics of gangster movies.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/gabriella-piazza-sopranos-many-saints-of-newark\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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