Although he made a career out of playing mobsters and brutes, James Gandolfini was in reality a very gentle, soft-spoken person.
Yet, sure enough, you get him pissed off and he's probably going to react. In a recent episode of the 'Talking Sopranos' podcast with former cast members Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa, an anecdote came up about Gandolfini's temper regarding one Harvey Weinstein.
While it wasn't regarding Weinstein's sexual crimes, it had more to do with him being pestered to d press for 'Killing Them Softly', the vastly underrated crime thriller from Andrew Dominik, starring Brad Pitt, Ben Mendelsohn, and of course, James Gandolfini.
Schirripa, who played Bobby Baccala in the series, recalled how Gandolfini was getting constant calls from Weinstein to do David Letterman's show.
According to Schirripa, Weinstein "got fucking nasty with Jim. And Jim said, 'I will beat the fuck out of Harvey Weinstein! He fucking calls me again, I will beat the fuck out of him. For the money he paid me, I’m not fucking doing it.' Swear to God. And this is before all the Harvey Weinstein shit when he was still king shit."
The best part about this is that you can actually hear Gandolfini going full throttle Tony Soprano with this as Schirripa tells it, all with the finger-pointing and the gestures. More to the point, you'd have no doubt that Gandolfini could take Weinstein in a fight.
Too bad he never had the makings of a varsity athlete.
