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The Sopranos follows the dangerous exploits of a criminal mobster as he struggles to balance his family life.
But a guest star has revealed that actors could be subject to some very real violence behind the scenes too, as one guest star revealed how he “got whacked by Paulie Walnuts and lived to tell about it”.
Silicon Valley actor Chris Diamantopoulos, 49, guest starred in a 2006 episode of the series aptly titled “The Fleshy Part of the Thigh”, when he was hit by Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri with a lead pipe.
Diamantopoulos played Jason Barone, the son of an old family friend of Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), as he goes against the mobster’s wishes, unaware of his late dad’s ties to the Mafia.
Walnuts, played by Tony Sirico in the hit HBO series, is then tasked with enacting retribution on Barone, with the help of a lead pipe.
“Sirico had two pipes, a lead pipe and a rubber pipe, one to use when the camera was on me, and one to use when the camera was on him,” Diamantopoulos told PEOPLE in an interview as he promoted his new show The Sticky.
“Which one do you think he used on me the first time? The answer is, ‘It wasn’t the fake one.’”
He added: “It was a rite of passage to be whacked by Paulie Walnuts.”
Sirico died in July 2022, although no cause of death has been made public, it was reported the star had been diagnosed with dementia in his final years.
Gandolfini first made his debut as depressed gangster Tony Soprano, a character considered one of the greatest TV roles of all time, in January 1999. The show ran for a total of 86 episodes across six seasons, ending in 2007.
The show’s finale continues to be meticulously analysed to this day. It depicts a seemingly ordinary yet extremely tense restaurant scene between Tony (James Gandolfini) and his family, which ends with the screen cutting to black.
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Viewers were left stunned by the moment and, over the years, many have assumed this stylistic decision symbolised the show’s protagonist getting “whacked”. Ever since, creator David Chase has been fielding requests for clarification – and, in 2020, even referred to it as a “death scene”.
Chase has since pointed to a season three scene that could shed light on any confusion surrounding the mysterious and divisive ending.
