Alec Baldwin has revealed the embarrassing reason he thinks he lost a chance to be in The Sopranos.
The actor was speaking to the HBO show’s cast members Michael Imperioli and Steven Schirripa when he said he once pitched a key role to the creative team.
Baldwin thought he should play a character who lured Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco) away from her mob boss husband, the show’s protagonist, Tony (James Gandolfini).
If Baldwin had his way, this character would have killed Tony.
“I called up whoever it was and said... there’s only one man in this business who should come in, whack Jimmy, and ride off with Edie, and I am that man,” Baldwin told Talking Sopranos podcast.
“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.’”
However, Baldwin thinks this chance was lost when he met creator David Chase on a particularly hot day in California, while he was drying his sweat-drenched suit using a hand dryer.
“I’m mopping the sweat off [of] my body” Baldwin said. “I hold my shirt up to the mechanical dryer, and the door opens – and it’s David Chase. This is my introduction to David Chase!”
The actor continued: “He goes, ‘Alec Baldwin? What the f*** 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.”
Last month, the show celebrated the anniversary of “Pine Barrens”, one of its best-loved episodes.
The episode is famous for never clearing up the mystery of the Russian hitman Valery. However, it was revealed that a deleted scene from the series’ final season would have concluded the storyline in a fatal manner.
