The hype around ‘The Many Saints Of Newark’ has been building for years now and it’s almost hard to believe that it’s finally going to be released unjust under a month because we’ve been talking about it for so long.

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Obviously one of the major talking points surrounding the movie is that Michael Gandolfini will be playing the part of a young Tony Soprano – the role made famous by his father James – and he’s decided to talk about the challenge of honouring his father’s legacy for the first time with Empire Magazine. Here’s what he had to say about it:

You know, I didn’t want to put pressure on myself to walk out of this feeling like I’d grown in terms of my feelings towards my dad.

I just wanted to be the best actor I could be, portraying Tony in the way David wanted, scene by scene. I didn’t think about my grief because…well, I would have s**t the bed.”

My dad’s character had all this beautiful sensitivity underneath this aggression.

This version of him is the reverse. His curiosity and sensitivity comes first. He’s not a gun-wielding gangster. He’s a kid who gets whittled down and pulled in.

I guess that’s kind of interesting? I don’t really know what I was expecting from his character when I think about it now, but I suppose it makes sense that Tony Soprano wasn’t always the loveable yet despicable angry badass that we know from six seasons of ‘The Sopranos’. Looking forward to this a lot.

For more of the same, check out this great story about James Gandolfini filming a fight scene in ‘The Sopranos’. What a legend.