Text size:

Dumb just an act for 'Sopranos' Ray Abruzzo

BY MARK La MONICA | mark.lamonica@newsday.com

April 16, 2007

Ray Abruzzo is not an idiot. He just plays one on television.

He does it so well, people often can't distinguish between Ray Abruzzo, the 46-year-old actor from Queens, and "Little Carmine," the heir apparent to the New York crime family on HBO's "The Sopranos."

Last month, Abruzzo dined at a Manhattan restaurant with old friends from the neighborhood. Two women eyed him from across the room. When he walked toward the restroom, one of the women called him over to their table. Oh, that Italian charm.

"We know we know you from somewhere," the woman said to Abruzzo. "Where do we know you from?"

"Well, I'm on 'The Sopranos,'" Abruzzo told the women.

But life is never as easy as that for famous folks.

"She looks at my face and she says, 'You're the idiot! He's the idiot!'" Abruzzo said. "Then, in a full voice, pointing to me, 'He's the idiot!' Now everybody's looking at me, and just sees this woman pointing, 'He's the idiot!' Hopefully, that's a misconception. That people think I'm an idiot."

Um, not exactly. We expect such a reaction from the public when they get that chance encounter with the actual person who plays a character on a popular television show or movie.

But when one of the directors on the show the actor is a part of doesn't know the difference, then there's probably a misconception somewhere. Or an Emmy award nomination down the road.

Abruzzo walked onto "The Sopranos" set one day, carrying "an involved, deep, heavy, philosophical book," he said. One of the directors who knew him more as Little Carmine and less as Ray Abruzzo walked by and asked Abruzzo if he was reading it. He was.

A few hours later, Terry Winter, a "Sopranos" executive producer and writer and a longtime friend, told him what had happened after that.

"Terry comes over and goes, 'He was amazed,'" Abruzzo said. "He says, 'You know the guy that plays Little Carmine is reading this book.' And Terry's like, 'What do you think, he can't read?'"

It's Abruzzo's turn as Carmine Lupertazzi Jr., a sort-of buffoonish mobster who was often and unintentionally belittled in public by his father and crime boss Carmine Sr., that has people questioning his mental acumen.

On the show, Little Carmine has a knack for using big words and pronouncing them wrong. In real life, Abruzzo made the conscious decision to do it during his audition.

From his beach house in Malibu on Sunday, Abruzzo discussed his role, his career and his dream for the show's ending with Newsday.com's Mark La Monica.

ML: You joined "The Sopranos" in the final episode of Season 4. How did that come about?

RA: They called me about a week before that episode started, and wanted me to put myself on tape for a role of the guy that did the drug intervention [for Christopher Moltisanti]. It was a one-scene role. I didn't want to do it because I knew they'd never cast anybody out of California. They only cast people out of New York. I thought it was kind of futile, but I did it. And then they called and said no for this part but maybe something for the future. I've heard that so many times in this business, I completely forgot about it.

Two weeks later they called me, and said David [Chase] wants you to put yourself on tape for this other character, Little Carmine. He was described as Little Carmine, anything but little, upwards of 350 pounds, sweating profusely with a twitching eye. And I thought, no wonder he thought of me. I'm a perfect fit!

I did it three times, making adjustments to the character and then I got it. I made the choice to mispronounce the word "Versailles" and say "Ver-sales" and that kind of stuck with this character. What they said was that I found humor in the character that other people did not.

ML: How much of Little Carmine is the writers' decisions and how much of him have you brought to the character?