Alec Baldwin has said that he once pitched to appear in The Sopranos.
Speaking on the Talking Sopranos podcast, as reported via Deadline, Baldwin revealed that he had cold-called The Sopranos production team and pitched them on casting him as Tony Soprano’s murderer.
“I called up whoever it was and said, ‘there’s only one man in this business who should come in, whack [James Gandolfini’s Tony], and ride off with [Edie Falco’s Carmela], and I am that man’,” Baldwin said.
He continued: “They were like, ‘Sure, great. We’ll add your name to the list of all the Irish actors who think that they should be on The Sopranos‘.”
Speaking with former cast members and co-hosts of the podcast Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa, Baldwin speculated that an unexpected run-in with David Chase was the reason he didn’t make the cut.
He recalled meeting the show’s creator while in a Los Angeles bathroom, where he was drying off a sweaty shirt before running to a meeting.
“I’m holding my shirt up to the mechanical dryer, and the door opens, and this is my introduction to David Chase,” he said.
“He goes, ‘Alec Baldwin? What the fuck are you doing, drying your shirt in the bathroom at the Four Seasons restaurant?’ And I think based on that alone, I was never cast on your show.”
Baldwin’s next big screen venture will be voicing the lead character in The Boss Baby 2.
The movie prequel to The Sopranos, The Many Saints of Newark, will be released in the UK on October 22 2021.