Alessandro Nivola Put His Foot Down and Won the ‘Many Saints’ Role Anyway
The New York Times
When he landed his first major lead in 25 years, he sobbed. “I’d been down that road so many times, and the number of disappointments I can’t count on 10 hands.”
The throbbing in the back of Alessandro Nivola’s head was growing more intense.
It was fall 2018 when he’d auditioned for the role of Dickie Moltisanti in “The Many Saints of Newark,” the “Sopranos” prequel, and “I felt pretty sure I was onto something,” he said. Though he wasn’t sure what that something was.
Then after a lunch with David Chase, creator of the series, and Alan Taylor, the film’s director, the full script arrived and the stakes shot through the roof. Dickie, it turned out, was the film’s protagonist, and Chase had been told he could cast anyone he wanted. And the word was that Chase wanted Nivola, who hadn’t carried a movie of this magnitude in his nearly 25-year film career.
