Alec Baldwin desperately wanted a role in the hit crime series The Sopranos (1999-2007). The actor, who is a huge fan of the series, wanted to play the character who would bring the main character Tony to life.
“I called someone from the production and said, ‘There’s only one man in this business who can kill Jimmy (meaning lead actor James Gandolfini, ed.) and run off with Edie (Tony’s wife, ed.), and that’s me,” Baldwin tells Deadline in the Talking Sopranos podcast .
“They said, ‘Sure. We’ll add your name to the list of all the other Irish actors who think they should get a part in The Sopranos .”
A phone call never followed. Baldwin himself thinks his meeting with David Chase, the creator and writer of the series, ruined his chances. The actor ran into him in a restaurant restroom, where he was just about to dry his sweat-soaked shirt.
“I put my shirt in front of the dryer, the door opened and that was my first meeting with him,” says Baldwin. Chase says, ‘Alec Baldwin? What the hell are you doing, are you drying your shirt in the toilet at the Four Seasons?’ I don’t think that’s why I was never cast for the series. “