{"id":3017,"date":"2013-06-21T06:12:04","date_gmt":"2013-06-21T13:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=3017"},"modified":"2013-06-21T06:12:48","modified_gmt":"2013-06-21T13:12:48","slug":"james-gandolfini-gone-too-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=3017","title":{"rendered":"James Gandolfini: Gone Too Soon&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?attachment_id=3018\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3018\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Screen-Shot-2013-06-21-at-9.07.46-AM-300x188.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"Screen Shot 2013-06-21 at 9.07.46 AM\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3018\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nA hand like a catcher&#8217;s mitt.  He was a big tough guy, but warm and very inviting.  <\/p>\n<p>I met (and shook hands with) James Gandolfini in New York City while covering the Tribeca Film Festival.  He and John Travolta were doing press for an underrated film called &#8220;Lonely Hearts.&#8221;  Gandolfini stayed around to chat afternoon formal questioning, whereas Travolta bolted.  In the film, Gandolfini played Charles Hilderbrandt, a grizzled police detective hot on the heels of the famous lonely hearts killers from the late 1940&#8217;s.  It is a good film and contained another impressive performance from one of the most unlikely leading men in Hollywood.<\/p>\n<p>A consistently interesting actor, Gandolfini popped up everywhere.  And you really couldn&#8217;t resist him, even when he was a bad guy.  I remember how ugly he was playing a killer in &#8220;True Romance.&#8221; To his credit, he took on another killer years later in &#8220;The Mexican.&#8221;  That conflicted character had much more depth and Gandolfini delivered.  Any production he became a part of was elevated.  And the roles frequently varied.  Check him out in the BBC production &#8220;In the Loop.&#8221;  The big guy knew how to make any character work.<\/p>\n<p>It is hard to believe that he was only 51 years old, because his career was so extensive.  He had a lifetime of roles.  And none was bigger than his star-making turn as mobster family man Tony Soprano on the iconic HBO series. He won numerous awards for his performance including a much deserved Golden Globe in 2000.  It appears that his last film may be &#8220;Animal Rescue&#8221; along side Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace. The film is listed as in post-production, so, we can expect to see another rich performance from this unique and beloved actor. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jonathan remembers meeting the big guy in NYC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3017"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3024,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3017\/revisions\/3024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}