What The Cast Of The Sopranos Looks Like Today

David Chase's critically acclaimed mob drama "The Sopranos" turned 20 in 2019, a milestone that was marked with a big press event in New York City. Cast members and creators reunited to celebrate the legacy of the hit show, which paved the way for the era of prestige television and made stars of its actors. Even after 20 years, there was still an appetite for the show, and that would only increase with the arrival of COVID-19. "WarnerMedia said recently that 'The Sopranos' enjoyed a 179% surge in viewership on its HBO Now streaming service at the start of the pandemic," Forbes reported in 2020. "It's since soared on HBO Max and elsewhere and continues to be one of the top destinations for viewers looking for something to stream."

People that weren't born when "The Sopranos" first aired are now discovering how addictive it is, but what was it that made the Mafia series such a phenomenon? It was considered groundbreaking TV for a variety of reasons (the unpredictable plot, the gritty realism, introducing the word "gabagool" to people outside of New Jersey), but it wouldn't have worked so well without the talented cast that David Chase assembled. While some of them fell off the radar entirely after "The Sopranos" ended, many of these actors are still working in Hollywood today. To find out what your favorite "Sopranos" stars are doing now (and what they look like after all these years), read on.

Edith 'Edie' Falco was already on HBO's radar when the network started looking for Tony's wife Carmela Soprano, having portrayed prison officer Diane Whittlesey in their dark crime drama "Oz" during the first four seasons of the show. It was a new direction for Falco after cutting her teeth in indie movies (her first speaking role in a feature film came in the 1994 Woody Allen flick "Bullets Over Broadway") but she took to it well, earning numerous honors for her portrayal of the beleaguered mafia wife, nabbing a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a SAG award in a single year.

Critical acclaim followed Falco into her next project, "Nurse Jackie," with the Brooklyn-born actor playing the titular role in the edgy Showtime dramedy from 2009 until it came to an end in 2015.  "Lately American TV has been willing to see the flaws in people," she told The Guardian when "Nurse Jackie" was just two seasons old. "Now all you see are characters striving to be good but just falling short of it. Viewers want to see more characters they can imagine really existing. Carmela and Jackie definitely fall into that category."

Falco had a couple of quiet years after "Nurse Jackie" ended, but she returned to our TV screens with a bang in 2021, playing Hilary Clinton in "Impeachment: American Crime Story." You'll be seeing a lot more of her in the coming years, too — Falco will appear as new character General Ardmore in "Avatar 2" and "Avatar 3," scheduled for release in 2022 and 2024, respectively.

Robert Iler got busted for marijuana possession and second-degree robbery during his time on "The Sopranos." The then-16-year-old and his friends were reported to police after two teens were robbed in a New York park and Iler was picked up by cops with $40 of weed on him, though he denied any wrongdoing. After "The Sopranos" Iler gave up acting for poker, moving to Las Vegas in 2012 so he could focus on the World Series of Poker full-time after entering the high-stakes competition on a handful of occasions as a youngster. "I've played the World Series a couple times before, this is my fifth year here," he told Poker News. "I would like to win a bracelet, but realistically I would just like to win a ton of money."

Iler fell off the radar again after that, but he surprised fans of "The Sopranos" when he joined former castmates Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa on their podcast "Talking Sopranos" in 2020, agreeing to a rare interview. He revealed that he gave up playing poker because it was feeding into his issues with drugs and alcohol. "I was drinking a lot back in the day," he said (via The Hollywood Reporter). "I have not been drunk in over seven years and hardcore drugs is also seven years. But I was taking Xanax every day and it took to me a long time to get off Xanax, and I had to go see a specialist."

Jamie-Lynn Sigler literally grew up on the set of "The Sopranos," winning the part of Tony's daughter Meadow Soprano fresh out of community theater. "Everything was brand new," she said. "It was my acting school, it was my everything school. I felt very protected on that set." Unfortunately, much like her onscreen sibling Robert Iler, Sigler peaked early with the "The Sopranos," never managing to outgrow it despite her best efforts. She tried to launch a career in pop music during the show's run, though when that died and her time as Meadow ended, opportunities proved few.

In 2016, the actor told Access Hollywood (via the Daily Mail) that she had been dealing with MS for many years, revealing that the last time she had enough energy to run was when she filmed the final episode of "The Sopranos." She said: "That's literally the last time I can ever remember feeling that freedom in my body." She hasn't let that stop her from acting, however.

Sigler began voicing the character of Rebeca in the animated Disney show "Elena of Avalor" in 2019, and in 2020 she starred in Adult Swim's classic sitcom parody "Beef House." She remains good friends with Iler, who revealed that neither of them have actually watched "The Sopranos" all the way through when he spoke to Page Six in 2021. "Jamie started to watch 'The Sopranos' during the pandemic and got half way," he told the tabloid, adding, "I've never seen it."

Michael Imperioli will probably always be best known for his turn as "Sopranos" deuteragonist Christopher Moltisanti, though the actor is nothing like his cocky and volatile character in real life. Speaking with GQ in 2020, he revealed that he maintains a vegetarian diet and practices Buddhism. "Looking back, I feel so far away from him," Imperioli said of his "Sopranos" character. "I almost don't even recognize that guy."

Imperioli was first noticed playing bit-part character Spider in Martin Scorsese's 1990 mob classic "Goodfellas," taking part in a memorable, expletive-laden exchange with Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito in which he stands up for himself and ends up dead. He flitted between film and TV in the years that followed, but wouldn't land his real breakout role until the end of the decade, when HBO brought him back into the gangster fold with "The Sopranos."

He's had a pretty terrible record with critics in the years since "The Sopranos" wrapped, but Imperioli has been in fine form during the pandemic era. He played famed boxing coach Angelo Dundee in 2020's "One Night in Miami," the near-universally acclaimed directorial debut of Regina King, and, to the surprise of many, he reprised his "Sopranos" role in the 2021 prequel film "The Many Saints of Newark," narrating certain scenes in character. "It was definitely different because so much time had gone by and there was an abstract nature to doing the voiceover, which is different than playing him," he told The Hollywood Reporter.

Drea de Matteo became a fan favorite with her in-your-face performance as Adriana, winning an Emmy for her work as the longtime partner of "Christapha" Moltisanti. By the time the FBI got to her she was a fixture on the show, making her death at the hands of another beloved character, Silvio Dante (Steven Van Zandt), particularly shocking. De Matteo revealed during a Reddit AMA that her killer wasn't keen on the scene. "Van Zandt was actually the most p***** off about it," she said. "He didn't want to pull me out of that car, he didn't want to call me a c-word, he didn't want to shoot me in the head."

The Queens native went on to appear as Joey Tribbiani's sister in his short-lived "Friends" spinoff, as Jax's ex-wife in "Sons of Anarchy," and, more recently, as a booking agent in Amazon's rock drama "Paradise City." When she sat down with NME to discuss the show, the actor admitted that she made a bad career move when "The Sopranos" finished. "I jumped right into 'Joey' — which I didn't think was a smart move but everybody pushed me into it — where I'm playing Adriana but as a cartoon. The reason people loved Adriana was because she wasn't a caricature, she was real."

De Matteo signed on to star in the Lifetime thriller "Safe Space," Deadline revealed in 2021, and she has a few other feature length projects in the pipeline.

Before, during, and after "The Sopranos," Steven Van Zandt has been a guitarist in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, which makes him one of the few cast members who are more famous for their contributions outside the show. "I was very lucky with 'The Sopranos,'" Van Zandt told Rolling Stone, explaining the lengths that Chase would go to in making sure his touring with the E Street Band could continue unhindered by the show's production. "[David] was such a fan — he would book all my scenes on off days during a tour." Perhaps that's the reason that Dante's fate (he was left comatose after being shot in the finale) was left open-ended?

One much-discussed fan theory is that the character he later played in "Lilyhammer" (the first-ever Netflix original series) was actually a manifestation of Sil's imagination and the show was taking place in a coma dream. If that was the case, then Netflix decided to unplug the life support in 2015, canceling the show after three seasons. Van Zandt was back among the gangsters in 2019 when he played late crooner Jerry Vale in "The Irishman," a lifelong favorite of director Martin Scorsese. In 2021, he released his long-awaited memoir "Unrequited Infatuations," in which he discussed how David Chase initially approached him about the part of Tony Soprano. "He really thought I could do it, and, out of pure ignorance, naiveté, I thought I could," he told Consequence. "Luckily HBO wouldn't let him."

What set Tony Sirico aside from his "Sopranos" castmates was that his tough guy act wasn't actually an act: he grew up in and around the notorious district of Bensonhurst, New York, a long-established mafia hotspot. Long before he was cast as wing-tipped sociopath Paulie Walnuts, Sirico took a Los Angeles Times reporter on a tour of the area, calling it a "good Italian neighborhood." Living there wasn't easy, however, as Sirico explained in full detail.

"I was a pistol-packing guy," he said. "The first time I went away to prison, they searched me to see if I had a gun, and I had three of 'em on me. In our neighborhood, if you weren't carrying a gun, it was like you were the rabbit during rabbit-hunting season." During his last stretch behind bars in the late 1970s, Sirico saw a performance by a group of ex-con actors and decided he had the looks and guts to do what they were doing.

His confidence wasn't misplaced. After minor appearances in films like "Goodfellas" and "Bullets Over Broadway," Sirico finally won a role of some real substance and ended up playing a central part in some of the all-time greatest "Sopranos" episodes, particularly "Pine Barrens." Outside of reuniting with Steven Van Zandt in "Lilyhammer" and working with Woody Allen again for 2016's "Cafe Society," Sirico hasn't done much in the years since, though he occasionally cashes in on his tough guy image with cameos.

Dominic Chianese has been acting for over five decades, though despite the many credits he's accumulated, he's still best known for his role as Tony's pain-in-the-ass uncle Corrado "Junior" Soprano. Chianese did a great job portraying the embittered old school mobster, especially towards the end as his dementia took over and he shot Tony. Like Michael Imperioli, one of Chianese's early credits came in another classic of the mafia genre — he made his second film appearance in 1974's "The Godfather Part II," the first time he'd share the screen with Al Pacino (the pair appeared together in 1975's "Dog Day Afternoon," 1979's "And Justice For All" and 1996's "Looking for Richard").

Post-"Sopranos," Chianese plied his trade on "Boardwalk Empire," another gangland hit for HBO. He appeared in 12 episodes as Leander Cephas Whitlock and was rewarded for his efforts along with the entire ensemble cast at the 2012 SAG Awards. Outside of acting, Chianese has a side career as a tenor, which won't come as a surprise to "Sopranos" fans who watched him bring grown mobsters to tears with his rendition of "Core 'ngrato" in the Season 3 finale. He likes to use his singing to raise money for charity and performs in nursing homes to entertain the elderly, though he hasn't giving up on acting — recent projects include a remake of Vittorio De Sica's postwar masterpiece "Umberto D."

Federico Castelluccio was born in the Italian city of Naples and moved to New Jersey when he was just four, so while the accent he used as ponytailed enforcer Furio in "The Sopranos" was pretty convincing, in truth it was slightly put on. "[It's] a compilation of my parents, my older brothers and my sister and the people I grew up with on 21st Avenue," the actor told the New York Times. ”They're really very proud to have somebody from their neighborhood that is on the show that they love. Almost everybody I know tells me they get together with friends and family and have 'Sopranos' parties every Sunday.”

Castelluccio has remained active in the industry in the years since "The Sopranos" ended, though he's been largely seen in bit parts here and there — which leaves him with more time to dedicate to his other great passion, art. Not only is he a renowned realist painter, but Castelluccio is an avid collector of baroque pieces and actually made a huge sale in 2014 when he discovered a lost 17th century work hidden away at a market in Frankfurt. He paid a little under $60,000 for the painting of early Christian martyr Saint Sebastian, which was being sold under unknown artists. Having studied famed Italian artist Guercino for years, he recognized his work in an instant and quickly organized the sale. With its authenticity verified, the painting is said to be valued in the millions.

Yet another "Sopranos" star with an early credit in a beloved gangster flick, Brooklyn-born Steve Schirripa's first experience in front of the camera came as an unnamed man sitting at a bar in Martin Scorsese's "Casino." He also played an unnamed goon in 1998's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" before winning the part of Bobby Baccalieri, a character who started out as a low-level soldier before becoming a top aide to Junior Soprano and eventually Tony's brother-in-law and underboss, which would lead to him getting whacked by the New York families while buying a toy train for his collection.

Schirripa is still best known as a TV actor, appearing in "The Secret Life of an American Teenager" between 2008 and 2013 and more recently New York cop drama "Blue Bloods," but he's also found success as an author — he co-wrote two books about a suburban teenager called Nicky Deuce who's sent to visit grandparents in Brooklyn. "Nicky Deuce: Welcome to the Family" and "Nicky Deuce: Home for the Holidays" proved so popular that Nickelodeon adapted them into a TV movie featuring a number of "Sopranos" alumni, including James Gandolfini, Michael Imperioli, and Tony Sirico.

Schirripa's recent projects include two feature films: he starred in a musical biography of forgotten Italian crooner Jimmy Roselli and, like so many "Sopranos" cast members before him, got on board with Woody Allen for Allen's Wonder Wheel, joining a cast that includes Kate Winslet, Juno Temple and Justin Timberlake.

The late James Gandolfini made his living as a character actor before being cast in the career-defining role of Tony Soprano, a role he was offered after being spotted by casting directors playing a no-nonsense gangster in 1993's "True Romance." Following Gandolfini's sad passing from a heart attack while on vacation in Rome with family in 2013, "Sopranos" showrunner David Chase paid tribute to his leading man, calling him one of the all-time greats. "James was a genius, anyone who saw him even in the smallest of his performances knows that," Chase said. "He is one of the greatest actors of this or any time. A great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes."

Gandolfini never saw himself that way in life, however, and was convinced that the part of Tony (originally to be called Tommy Soprano) would go to someone a little more photogenic. "I thought they would hire someone a little more debonair, some good-looking guy, not George Clooney, but some Italian George Clooney, and that would be that," he said — but he was wrong, and when "The Sopranos" wrapped in 2007, he had plenty of doors open to him. While he did make a couple of questionable decisions (taking a part in "safe and predictable" comedy flop "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" being one of them) he was on a real run when he passed, appearing in five Certified Fresh films in the space of two years.