Tony Hale recalls near-disastrous guest spot on The Sopranos as Uncle Junior's nurse
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Tony Hale may have made a career, if not an art, out of playing anxious characters from Arrested Development to his Emmy-winning turn on Veep. However, when he was still a struggling work-a-day actor, his nerves nearly got the best of him while working on the biggest show on TV.
On a recent episode of SiriusXM's Pop Culture Spotlight With Jessica Shaw, the Mysterious Benedict Society star recounted how his hands were "violently shaking" while trying to play a nurse oncologist who inserts a tube into Uncle Junior's (Dominic Chianese) arm on The Sopranos.
HBO Tony Hale on 'The Sopranos'
"I'll never forget on The Sopranos — because of my anxiety, my nerves will manifest itself in my hands; my hands will start shaking," Hale told Shaw. "And I was a nurse oncologist to Uncle Junior, and I'll never forget my hands were violently shaking about to put a tube into his arm."
Hale says "by the grace of God" his hands calmed down, and he was able to go on with the scene, bt, he continued, "Can you imagine Uncle Junior, 'Who's this guy giving me chemo treatments and his hands are violently shaking against my skin?'"
Hale guest starred in the 2001 episode of The Sopranos, "Second Opinion," just two years before his breakout role as Buster Bluth on Arrested Development. That show also involved violence and Hale's hands, but at least that was part of the storyline.
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