Footage showing James Gandolfini reprising Sopranos role debuts online after 14 years

Footage that shows James Gandolfini reprising his role in HBO’s hit sitcom The Sopranos has debuted online after 14 years.

The Sopranos fans were thrown a curveball in 2021 when Edie Falco revealed that she once reunited with Gandolfini to reprise Tony and Carmela Soprano for a one-off video clip set two years after the events of the cliffhanger series finale, which ended with Tony’s fate left ambiguous.

That footage has now been debuted online. On the latest episode of Pablo Torre’s Finds Out podcast, he played the once-buried footage of Gandolfini and Falco’s bizarre reunion.

The short film was shot to help the New York Knicks basketball organisation convince LeBron James to join their team in 2010. At the time, all of the top NBA teams were desperate to sign James, and the Knicks decided to enlist the help of The Sopranos stars and make a short film to help promote New York to James.

Chris Rock, Mike Bloomberg, Robert De Niro, Alec Baldwin and Spike Lee also all appear in the video.

In The Sopranos scene, Carmela and Tony have relocated to New York City, and are sitting in the living room of the apartment where they are in hiding.

“Tony, I’m so glad we moved to New York. Life is so much better now,” Carmela tells her husband two years after the 2007 finale.

“Yeah life is good here now,” Tony replies. “Even if we are in the witness protection program.”

“Now we just have to find a place for your friend LeBron to live. What’s he like?” Carmela asks.

“He’s a modern guy, but he respects tradition,” Tony says before the pair discuss what kind of apartment LeBron should move into in New York City.

“We’ve gotta find something magnificent, something that’s one-of-a-kind, like he is,” said Tony.

Carmela then says she’s found the perfect place for James, and pulls up a picture of the Knicks basketball arena. “Here’s a place, but they say it gets really loud,” she says.

“Oh yeah, that’s it, that’s gonna be perfect for him,” says Tony, before the pair grin at the camera.

When Falco initially revealed that the reunion clip had been shot, she explained that she was taken aback that Gandolfini agreed to reprise Tony with the aim of getting James to join the Knicks, since the actor often turned down requests to reprise the role.

“We got those requests all the time back then and [James] Gandolfini, he did nothing,” Falco said then. “And somehow, he agreed to this thing, which I was shocked by. I thought it was a prank when someone said he’s going to do it…[and then] there he was, dressed as Tony. He must have been a bigger basketball fan than I realised.”

Falco also shared her disbelief that the Sopranos video didn’t convince the basketball player to join the Knicks, and he ended up joining Miami Heat and heading to South Beach.

“I couldn’t believe that it didn’t work,” Falco said. “Not so much because of The Sopranos. I just thought, it’s New York. How does anyone say no to New York, for God’s sake? But he did!”

The Sopranos ended its run in 2007 after six seasons and 86 episodes, and won 21 Primetime Emmy Awards in total.

You can watch the full The Sopranos clip on Pablo Torre’s Finds Out podcast here.