Long Island's Jamie-Lynn Sigler wishes she could do one more 'Sopranos' episode with James Gandolfini
Left, Jamie-Lynn Sigler visits the SiriusXM Studio in April 2022, in Manhattan. At right, Sigler and James Gandolfini attend a 2007 HBO Emmy party in Los Angeles. Credit: Composite: Astrid Stawiarz / Getty Images; Stephen Shugerman / Getty Images
Jericho born-and-raised actor Jamie-Lynn Sigler says she wishes she could have one more chance to play her signature role, Meadow Soprano of HBO’s “The Sopranos,” in particular to work again with the late James Gandolfini, who played her mob-boss father.
“I wish we could just do one week of filming right now, because of just, like, my awareness of the world and what that was and what we were a part of,” Sigler, 42, said of the acclaimed 1999-2007 series. Speaking on Tuesday’s episode of the podcast “Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum,” hosted by the actor best known as Lex Luthor on the series “Smallville,” she added, “I just wish I could experience it, like, one episode, give me one episode right now. Just drop me back in for a couple of days."
When asked what such an episode might entail, Sigler replied, “The family. Some sort of internal struggle with the family …. I always loved moments when Meadow and Tony got quiet together. … [In] all our scenes when we would get quiet together, the dialogue would actually be really limited. It would just be these, like, heavy, pregnant pauses.”
And, she lauded, “Jim was the type of scene partner where it felt like he was there and his only intention was to make me as good as I could be. … Every time I worked with him, I felt like his sole purpose was, ‘I’m going to help you give your best ... take, Jamie.’ ”
Performing one of her very first screen roles, Sigler said she “definitely didn’t feel that” she was on a level to help inspire Gandolfini in that same way. Instead, for her, the experience “more was like just watching a really amazing artist." Gandolfini, who won three Emmy Awards for his starring role as Tony Soprano, died June 19, 2013, in Rome at age 51 of cardiac arrest.
Sigler, who recently starred in the series “Big Sky,” is married to Manhasset-born former baseball player Cutter Dykstra — son of retired Mets outfielder Lenny Dykstra — with whom she has three children. Last year she and her TV brother, Robert Iler, revisited their “Sopranos” characters in a Super Bowl commercial for the Chevrolet Silverado EV.
