Edie Falco Discusses Deleted Carmela Soprano Scene from The Many Saints of Newark

Edie Falco has recently shed light on a monologue she had filmed for the 2021 Sopranos spin-off film The Many Saints of Newark, which ultimately didn’t make it to the final cut.

Known for her role as Carmela Soprano, the wife of mafia don Tony (James Gandolfini) in the acclaimed HBO crime drama, Falco, 61, revisited her role for this particular scene. It was earlier known she had filmed a segment, but it was not included in the release. Now, the Nurse Jackie star shared more insights about the scene and her feelings upon learning it was cut.

“I came in and did a monologue,” Falco told IndieWire. “I’m embarrassed that I don’t know what [exactly] it was about. It was Carmela as if she was musing on the old days, and then the movie began. Then I found out that [Many Saints director Alan Taylor] didn’t end up using it. What a flippy day that was.”

She reminisced about the experience: “All these years later they’re doing my hair, putting on jewelry, putting the nails back on, it was like a serious trip. There were so many Sopranos people there. It was so lovely. I’m so deeply fond of those people, Alan Taylor, of course, amongst them.”

The Many Saints of Newark is a prequel set decades before the events of The Sopranos, focusing on a teenaged Tony, played by Michael Gandolfini, the son of the late series star, and his mobster uncle Dickie Moltesanti, portrayed by Alessandro Nivola.

The film features a host of actors embodying the younger versions of iconic Sopranos characters: Corey Stoll as Junior Soprano, Billy Magnussen as Paulie Walnuts, John Magaro as Silvio Dante, and Vera Farmiga as Livia Soprano.

Reflecting on reprising Carmela, Falco remarked, “It was crazy, but so normal, because I spent 10 years of my life doing that daily. You don’t get to do that a lot.”

In a four-star review of The Many Saints of Newark for The Independent, critic Clarisse Loughrey observed, “It’s not all that necessary to be acquainted with The Sopranos to enjoy its feature-length prequel, The Many Saints of Newark. What it demands from its audience is only this: an understanding that there is no innocence among the powerful, and that men too often carry on the burdens of their forefathers.”

Loughrey continued, “Such fatalistic ideas were already the lifeblood of David Chase’s celebrated mob drama, which aired on HBO from 1999 to 2007 and is still widely regarded to be a peerless work of television. But here they’re delivered with that quiet ache that can only come with the passing of time. The Many Saints of Newark is both instantly recognizable and somehow unplaceable. It’s fierce and brilliant, too—a work that both expands on and complicates the cultural legacy of The Sopranos.”

Source: IndieWire, The Independent