Spoilers are a big deal in the entertainment industry. It’s a comical cliche for actors to talk about snipers being ready to take them out should they reveal anything about big projects they are working on, but the truth is that studios and productions really do take serious measures to prevent certain information from getting to the public. Nowadays, the behavior is most closely associated with superhero blockbusters, but the practice goes back many decades, and it’s a history that The Sopranos is very much a part of.
In a recent interview with The Independent, Steve Schirripa and Michael Imperioli (co-hosts of the podcast Talking Sopranos) took a big picture look back on their time making the beloved, critically acclaimed HBO series, and the conversation included discussion of maintaining big secrets. Unfortunately, there was someone involved with the show that wasn’t quite as trustworthy as others, as the actor best known for playing Bobby Baccalieri confirmed that there was a person on set who was spilling early information about the series to the public for personal profit. In his words,
There was a leak on set because somebody was selling information. We had some suspects…
He didn’t name names, but it’s noted that nobody was ever actually caught. It’s kind of fitting that there would be some shady dealings behind the scenes, though, no? Perhaps there will be a deathbed confession someday.
As for the security measures that were employed on set, Schirripa said that there were a couple of different tactics taken. In the case of one major scene – specifically the infamous death of Drea de Matteo’s Adriana La Cerva in Season 5 – there were multiple versions that were shot. The dissemination of scripts was also ultimately affected, as actors were only given their own scenes by the time that The Sopranos was coming to an end.
It’s pretty wild that all of this happened nearly a quarter-century ago, and yet the spoiler issues that plagued premium cable’s game-changing series in the ‘00s are still being dealt with by Marvel movies today. The world has changed a great deal in the last couple of decades, but the hunger of fans for secret information remains insatiable, and Hollywood has still not figured out a foolproof way to protect surprises that are only intended to be experienced on screen.
The Sopranos is most definitely a show that had plenty of shocks (particularly involving notable characters getting whacked), and they still remain impactful 19 years after the series aired its controversial finale. Should you care to dive in and experience the mobster magic for yourself again, the full six-season run is available to stream with a HBO Max subscription.
