Exclusive: Michael Gandolfini, Alessandro Nivola and Leslie Odom Jr. talk Soprano Prequel ‘The Many Saints Of Newark’

Coming out this week from New Line Cinema is “The Many Saints of Newark,” the much-anticipated feature film prequel to the groundbreaking, award-winning HBO drama series “The Sopranos.” The film hits theaters and HBO Max on October 1.

The film is set in the explosive 1960s in the era of the Newark riots, when the African-American and Italian communities are often at each other’s throats. But among the gangsters within each group, the dangerous rivalry becomes especially lethal.

Young Anthony Soprano is growing up in one of the most tumultuous eras in Newark’s history, becoming a man just as rival gangsters begin to rise up and challenge the all-powerful DiMeo crime family’s hold over the increasingly race-torn city. Caught up in the changing times is the uncle he idolizes, Dickie Moltisanti, who struggles to manage both his professional and personal responsibilities—and whose influence over his nephew will help make the impressionable teenager into the all-powerful mob boss we’ll later come to know: Tony Soprano.

“The Many Saints of Newark” stars Alessandro Nivola as Dickie Moltisanti, the father of Michael Imperioli’s original-series Christopher Moltisanti, Tony winner Leslie Odom Jr., Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll as Junior Soprano, Michael Gandolfini as young Tony Soprano, Billy Magnussen as Paulie Walnuts, Michela De Rossi, Patina Miller, John Magaro as Silvio Dante, with Emmy winner Ray Liotta and Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga.

BlackFilmandTV.com’s Wilson Morales spoke with Gandolfini on playing the younger version of his father’s role, Nivola on having the biggest role of his career, and Odom Jr. on the complexity of his character.