James Gandolfini Used This Painful Trick to Feign Illness for aSopranosScene (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

James Gandolfini and Chris Diamantopoulos on ‘The Sopranos.'.Photo:HBO

HBO

Diamantopoulos, 49, appeared in the hit HBO series’ final season’s fourth episode, “The Fleshy Part of the Thigh,” as Jason Barone, a son in mourning for a father who was secretly working with Tony Soprano (Gandolfini).

In the episode, Gandolfini’s Tony was hospitalized, and out of respect for his late father’s friend, Barone visited him in the hospital. “His character had to have stabbing pains in his abdomen,” Diamantopoulos says of the “late, great” actor.

“I remember him outside on a break, looking for a particular stone. He wanted to find a jagged rock, and he hid it under his hospital gown and had his arm over it so that when it called for the character to be in pain, [Gandolfini] pushed his arm down and the rock dug into his gut, and it gave him a chance to react to it,” Diamantopoulos says.

“I thought that was really a practical effect. A really neat thing to see.”

Chris Diamantopoulos and Tony Sirico in “The Sopranos.".HBO

Diamantopoulos also shared his memories of working with the late actor Tony Sirico. When Diamantopoulos’ character didn’t comply with mob orders, he earned a beating from Sirico’s Paulie Walnuts.

“Sirico had two pipes, a lead pipe and a rubber pipe, one to use when the camera was on me, and one to use when the camera was on him,” he says. “Which one do you think he used on me the first time?”

Diamantopoulos has continued to act alongside Hollywood legends — most recently withMargo MartindaleandJamie Lee CurtisinThe Sticky.

He says working with Curtis, 66, and Martindale, 73, “two masters of their craft at the height of their game,” was a “career highlight.”

“These two powerhouses have taken their combined experience, talent, wisdom, generosity and empathy, and they’ve poured it into this,” he said. “I am the lucky benefactor who is able to go along this journey with them.”

In the new Amazon Prime series, Diamantopoulos’ mobster Mike Byrne teams up with Martindale’s maple syrup farmer Ruth Landry and Guillaume Cyr’s security guard Remy Bouchard to pull a multi-million dollar heist on Quebec’s maple syrup surplus.

Chris Diamantopoulos and Jamie Lee Curtis in “The Sticky”.Amazon Studios

Amazon Studios

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The Stickyseason 1 is available to stream on Prime Video.

source: people.com