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Mark Kamine feared he would have to save James Gandolfini\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
It was just after midnight in Hollywood, Florida, and the cast of “The Sopranos” had finished filming for the day. After plenty of drinking, hotel staff warned the crew that they were too noisy, prompting everyone to head down to the beach.<\/p>\n
“We were getting complaints,” Kamine, author of “On Locations,” told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n
‘SOPRANOS’ STAR JAMES GANDOLFINI STRUGGLED ON SET FROM ‘EXCESSES OF CONSUMPTION’: BOOK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
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Mark Kamine recalled befriending James Gandolfini on the set of “The Sopranos.”<\/span> (Jason LaVeris\/FilmMagic)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n“We got a whole cooler full of beer,” he shared. “It\u2019s really late, we\u2019ve been drinking, and we have a 9 o\u2019clock flight tomorrow. And then Jim suggests a late-night swim in the ocean. You could hear the waves and it was dark. I thought, \u2018This is bad.\u2019 I\u2019m the only production person here, and I just imagined him being swallowed up by that ocean.”<\/p>\n
“I remember telling Jim, \u2018I don\u2019t think this is a good idea,\u2019” Kamine continued. “\u2019Do we really have to do this? Please don\u2019t do this.\u2019 Let\u2019s just say I was totally ignored. I kept telling him how there might be a rip current. He just smirked and said, \u2018What, you\u2019re gonna save me Mark?\u2019 and ran in. I just stood there, waiting for him to come out, hoping he wouldn\u2019t disappear. I just couldn\u2019t control him, but I felt like I needed to say something.”<\/p>\n
“That ended my drinking for the night,” Kamine added.<\/p>\n
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James Gandolfini wasn’t afraid to take risks, especially while drinking, according to a new book.<\/span> (Anthony Neste\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nIn the HBO series, Gandolfini starred as Tony Soprano, the brutish mob boss with a tortured psyche. Kamine scouted locations during the show\u2019s six-season run.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But when cameras stopped rolling, Kamine witnessed a completely different persona.<\/p>\n
“He was shy,” Kamine recalled. “He wasn\u2019t a boisterous or loud personality. He wasn\u2019t scary \u2013 Tony often was. Jim pretty much kept to himself\u2026 But then, you saw this powerful character who commanded a room. He became Tony so quickly on set. But it wasn\u2019t easy, even for him.”<\/p>\n
“You saw how disturbed he would get by the things he had to say in character,” Kamine revealed. “He would try to argue with [creator] David [Chase], \u2018I don\u2019t want to say these words. I don\u2019t see the reason why he has to be overtly outspokenly racist or sexist.\u2019 David was always like, \u2018But that\u2019s the character, Jim. Get used to it.\u2019 Jim understood that, but it just hurt him to be that way. He wasn\u2019t like that at all.”<\/p>\n
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Mark Kamine has written a book titled “On Locations” about his time on “The Sopranos” set.<\/span> (Steerforth\u00a0)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nDespite his quiet demeanor, Gandolfini was generous on set and didn\u2019t think twice about offering a helping hand to whoever needed it.<\/p>\n
“He would write checks for people,” said Kamine. “Every Friday night he would pay for this enormous banquet of sushi for the shooting crew. I remember every Friday night, trucks would just roll out, and this massive spread would come out \u2013 and it didn\u2019t matter where we were filming. He was really a great guy.”<\/p>\n
But Gandolfini also had a different side. His drinking was well known on set, Kamine alleged.<\/p>\n
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James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano and Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano are seen seeking counseling in HBO’s hit television series, “The Sopranos.”<\/span> (HBO)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n“We lost dates because of that,” Kamine claimed. “HBO wrote it into a contract one year that he would pay [if he missed a day] because it was very expensive to film a show like that. I think at the time it could cost $150,000 – $250,000 per day. No one likes to lose that kind of money and not get anything done. I know that they wrote into his contract that he would pay for any days that he missed. I don\u2019t think they ever charged him.”<\/p>\n
“He had those issues,” Kamine reflected. “I think part of his personality was overcoming the shyness or being uncomfortable with so much success so quickly. Who knows?”<\/p>\n
Gandolfini became “increasingly unreliable” several seasons into “The Sopranos” as his drinking became harder for the actor to hide while filming, Kamine claimed in his book. In it, he wrote about an incident when the actor stayed out all night in Atlantic City and showed up to work late and unprepared.<\/p>\n
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“The Sopranos” aired on HBO from 1999 to 2007.<\/span> (Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nKamine described that while shooting the season four “Pie-O-My” episode, Gandolfini and several others went out one night in the gambling hotspot.<\/p>\n
“I am at the hotel bar when the crew member closest to Jim asks if I want to go down to Atlantic City with Jim and a few others. It\u2019s over an hour away. I decline,” he wrote in the book. “The next morning I\u2019m not surprised when Jim cannot be roused.”<\/p>\n
Kamine said Gandolfini finally arrived about four hours late to the set.<\/p>\n
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James Gandolfini and Jamie-Lynn Sigler attend the HBO Emmy after party at the Pacific Design Center on Sept. 16, 2007, in Los Angeles.<\/span> (Stephen Shugerman\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n“We get through the day with an extra hour and a half of shooting but without falling behind, Jim cursing his way through his half-learned lines, doing take after take, drinking coffees and bottles of water, alternately sheepish and churlish, the way he always is when he f—s up,” Kamine wrote.<\/p>\n
Gandolfini died in 2013 at age 51. His cause of death was a heart attack.<\/p>\n
A GQ article published around the time of Gandolfini\u2019s death detailed the effects the “punishing role” of playing a sociopathic mobster had on the actor.<\/p>\n
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A view of the program given out at the funeral for actor James Gandolfini at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on June 27, 2013, in New York City. Gandolfini passed away on June 19, 2013, while vacationing in Rome, Italy.<\/span> (Mike Coppola\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nPlaying “Tony Soprano would always require to some extent being Tony Soprano,” the outlet claimed, adding that “In papers related to a divorce filing at the end of 2002, Gandolfini\u2019s wife described increasingly serious issues with drugs and alcohol, as well as arguments during which the actor would repeatedly punch himself in the face out of frustration. To anybody who had witnessed the actor\u2019s self-directed rage as he struggled to remember lines in front of the camera \u2013 he would berate himself in disgust, curse, smack the back of his own head \u2013 it was a plausible scenario.”<\/p>\n
In his book, Kamine described attending Gandolfini\u2019s funeral, where hundreds of people gathered at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. He also recalled the aftermath of losing the beloved star.<\/p>\n
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Mark Kamine attends the HBO Emmys Party at San Vicente Bungalows on Sept. 12, 2022, in West Hollywood, California.<\/span> (David Livingston\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n“I\u2019ll hear [writer] Terry Winter talk in a radio interview about the shock he felt on hearing the news, and I\u2019ll hear David say later that unlike Terry, he has been expecting this call for years,” Kamine wrote. “He means, I take it, that Jim\u2019s overindulgence and binging wildness, weight gain and lack of care taken with himself could lead only to this, an early death. As usual, it\u2019s hard to argue with David\u2019s way of seeing things.”<\/p>\n
Today, Kamine serves as an executive producer for “The White Lotus.”<\/p>\n
“\u2019The Sopranos\u2019 still has an enormous influence,” Kamine told Fox News Digital. “I felt it was time to look back. It was one of those rare, wonderful experiences that you couldn\u2019t ever have predicted.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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