‘The Sopranos’ Alum Michael Imperioli Found Scenes Abusing Women More Challenging To Film Than Shooting A Mobster

Michael Imperioli is opening about his time on The Sopranos and the scenes he found the most difficult to film.

The White Lotus actor said that the scenes where he was seen being physically abusive to Drea de Matteo’s Adriana La Cerva were challenging as opposed to scenes where he was shooting a mobster.

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“It’s much easier shooting a mobster or shooting heroin,” Imperioli told The Guardian. “That stuff to me is not difficult. That stuff to me is not difficult. But that stuff with her was.”

Imperioli played Christopher Moltisanti throughout the six seasons of the HBO drama series. Christopher had a tumultuous and abusive relationship with Adriana which involved filming brutal scenes.

“The most brutal, difficult stuff for me is when Christopher had to be physically abusive with Adriana, for obvious reasons,” the actor explained. “On a technical level, you’re trying to be really careful so you don’t hurt the person. But having to get to that point of violence towards a woman, you have to go to some nasty places to get there. Sometimes it’s very immediate. Sometimes it’s something present in your life that you can tap into. Sometimes you have to go someplace from the past. And sometimes you have to go to someplace imaginary.”

He later said, “It’s one thing to choreograph and rehearse it, then when you act it full-tilt with all the emotion, it’s easy to not have as much control as in the rehearsal. So you really have to be quite careful.”

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