James Gandolfini talks about his new projects,aversion to watching his own movies and love for stupid comedies in a tell-all interview. What the hell is happening now? James Gandolfini asked,not quite smiling,at the start of an interview last week. He is not big on interviews; journalists who mention his most famous role,playing the mob boss Tony Soprano,get swatted away. I never think about him,ever, Gandolfini,49,said. But some projects are worth talking about. For HBO he is an executive producer of Wartorn: 1861-2010,a documentary about the history of post-traumatic stress in the military that premiered on November 11. And in his forthcoming film,Welcome to the Rileys,a dark indie,he is a businessman with a fractured family who befriends a stripper,played by Kristen Stewart. The film was shot on location in New Orleans,one of his favourite cities. Do you worry about typecasting? In this role youre sort of a surprise softie. I read a lot of different stuff. Mostly its not a lot of that stuff anymore with shooting and killing and dying and blood. Im getting a little older,you know. The running and the jumping and killing,its a little past me. So it was only the non-violent script that attracted you? It was different from something I played before,and I thought the script had some humour in it. I have not seen the movie yet so I dont know how much humour we kept,but I thought it was good and interesting. Why have you not seen the movie? To me the experience of the movie is doing it. I trust the people I worked with and Im not one to go and change the order of that stuff. Not that anybody would listen to me anyway. Do you watch much TV? No. But youve made two documentaries for HBO about combat,Alive Day Memories in 2007,and now Wartorn. How did you get involved in that? It all started when we were doing The Sopranos and I would get letters or feedback from people saying the soldiers [in Iraq,would go out and patrol and then theyd come back and watch The Sopranos. Tony Sirico [who played Paulie Gualtieri,was a Marine,and I decided to go over there. Sheila Nevins,who was the head of documentaries at HBO,found out about this and decided that it would be interesting to do this documentary. Then I was going to go back to Afghanistan and Iraq with Tony Sirico again just to walk around and say hello guys,we dont sing and dance. She wanted to do something about post-traumatic stress from the Civil War on,and I said sure. Welcome to the Rileys,the play God of Carnage and of course The Sopranos are all about these besieged patriarchs. Do you have a particular interest in struggling families? To be honest,I dont,you know whos that guy that blows everything up? Michael Bay hasnt been calling too much. Im fine with doing what Im doing,these little scripts,Im lovin them. Youre also an executive producer on an Ernest Hemingway movie for HBO. Are you a big Hemingway fan? Actually not that much. I read some of his stuff,but I come from a pretty regular blue-collar background,I kind of like not to do too much research about something until the scripts done,so I can read the script as somebody would see it. Just a regular guy looking at it,saying,wow,thats what this guy was about? If you dont watch your movies,what kind of movies do you like to watch? I watch stupid comedies. Role Models. I love them. The Rocker. I loved that. I like idiotic comedies.
