Warning: This will contain spoilers forThe Sopranosseason 1 and 2.Over a decade and a half after theHBOhitThe Sopranosaired its last episode, Michael Imperioli reflected on one particular moment in which Tony Sirico, who sadly passed away last year, changed the dialogue for one pivotal scene that reflected more on his character, Paulie Walnuts, who he played throughout the show from 1999 to 2007.
According to Imperioli, Sirico did not like how one particular line of dialogue from theHBOshow’s first season was written regarding Paulie, so he asked the writers to change it, which was not a common occurrence during the show’s run, let alone its first season. Yet, according to Imperioli, Sirico’s wishes were ultimately granted byThe Sopranoswriters.
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In an interview withNPR.org, Imperioli delved into what the original dialogue was going to be with Paulie following the suicide of crooked cop Vin Makazian. “Tony goes to see this madam, who was a friend of Makazian, and they’re talking about Paulie Walnuts. And she said Makazian always liked you, Tony. He didn’t like Paulie. He thought Paulie was a bully.” Imperioli then revealed that Sirico did not like that dialogue and wanted them to change it, which the writers eventually obliged. “Well, Tony read this in the script and was infuriated and went to the writers and said, this is wrong. Paulie is not a bully. And I’m not saying this line ‘cause Paulie, he’s not a bully, and you got to change that line. And they never changed anything on ‘The Sopranos.’ You couldn’t improv. You couldn’t change a comma. And the writers, for some reason, they took this into consideration and went back to him and said, ‘Well, what if we change it to, he thought Paulie was a psycho?’ And Tony went, ‘I’m fine with that.'”
For context, Makazian, who was played by the also passed John Heard, was a detective who worked with the mafia because of gambling debts that he owed them. Already dealing with depression, once Makazian was arrested for being at a whorehouse alongside others who were connected to the mob, he took his own life. Though his time on the show was pretty brief, his impact on the story was substantial, as it was Makazian who revealed to Tony that Soprano’s best friend and fellow mobster Pussy Bonpensiero had been working with the federal government. Because neither Tony nor the other mobsters like Paulie wanted to believe Makazian’s inside info - which turned out to be 100 percent true - everyone looked into both him and his allegations.
Perhaps why Sirico had an issue with the original line was the accuracy more than anything else. While the words “bully” and “psycho” can be synonymous in some ways, bullies can be petty without any psychosis regarding how they deal with issues. Psychos, on the other hand, are straightforward psychotic and will act and react aggressively to anything they don’t like. While Paulie wasn’t above backstabbing hisfriends like Tony Sopranoor messing with his crew’s heads, like Imperioli’s Christopher Moltisanti, whenever there was an upfront problem, he usually went with his gut instinct.
That’s what made Paulie stand out as his own character. DespiteThe Sopranosbeing about mobstersgetting their jobs done, every one of the Dimeo family had their own character traits. Paulie was loyal, for the most part, but above all else, he always looked out for number one because life in the mob usually doesn’t last all that long. It’s likely that you either get killed, or you get arrested, and Paulie was one actively trying to avoid both while also trying to work his way up. And no one could have played him better than Tony Sirico.
The Sopranoscan currently be streamed on HBO Max
