Biography

'Sopranos' gave the lie to the notions that you had to explain everything, that you always had to have a star in the lead, that everybody had to be ultimately likable, and there had to be so-called closure, that there was a psychological lesson to be learned, that there was a moral at the center that you should carry away from the show, that people should be pretty, that people should be svelte. The networks had essentially thrown in the towel on good drama. It's like changing the direction of an ocean liner. But 'Sopranos' did it. They changed the game.

[on actress Nancy Marchand, who passed away during the production] As she got sicker, it was very hard for her to remember lines, which she found incredibly frustrating. Her reputation was that she could look at a script just for minutes and memorize it. So, for her, this was particularly galling. I remember going to kiss her at the end of her last episode with me, and she kissed me on the lips. There was something about that kiss that has really stayed with me all these years. I've always seen it as a statement: I am here, I am a woman, and this is who I am despite the evidence of years.