Chris Diamantopoulos Shares Intense Behind-the-Scenes Stories From “The Sopranos”
Chris Diamantopoulos has shared the screen with Hollywood’s finest, but few experiences left as deep an impression as his time on The Sopranos. In a recent interview with PEOPLE, Chris opened up about witnessing the legendary James Gandolfini’s dedication to his craft and surviving a bruising encounter with Tony Sirico’s Paulie Walnuts.
Chris, now 49, appeared in the final season of The Sopranos as Jason Barone, a grieving son whose father had secret ties to Tony Soprano. In his memorable hospital scene with Gandolfini, Chris caught a glimpse of the late actor’s raw commitment to authenticity.
“His character had to have stabbing pains in his abdomen,” Chris recalled, adding, “I remember him outside on a break, looking for a particular stone. He wanted to find a jagged rock, and he hid it under his hospital gown and had his arm over it so that when it called for the character to be in pain, [Gandolfini] pushed his arm down and the rock dug into his gut, and it gave him a chance to react to it.”
For Chris, watching Gandolfini use such a raw and physical acting method was unforgettable. “I thought that was a really practical effect. A really neat thing to see.”
But Chris didn’t just observe method acting — he also endured a rather painful moment of his own. In another scene, his character faced the wrath of Tony Sirico’s Paulie Walnuts.
“It was a rite of passage to be whacked by Paulie Walnuts,” Chris joked. But things didn’t exactly go according to the script.
“Sirico had two pipes, a lead pipe and a rubber pipe, one to use when the camera was on me, and one to use when the camera was on him. The answer is it wasn’t the fake one,” Chris joked adding that he “got whacked by Paulie Walnuts and lived to tell about it.”
These days, Chris continues to work alongside screen legends. In The Sticky, Amazon Prime’s quirky crime-comedy series, he stars opposite the iconic Jamie Lee Curtis and the endlessly talented Margo Martindale.
Reflecting on working with Jamie, 66, and Margo, 73, Chris described it as a “career highlight.” “These two powerhouses have taken their combined experience, talent, wisdom, generosity, and empathy, and poured it into this. I am the lucky benefactor who gets to join them on this journey.”
In The Sticky, Chris plays Mike Byrne, a mobster who teams up with Margo’s maple syrup farmer Ruth Landry and Guillaume Cyr’s security guard Remy Bouchard to pull off a daring multi-million-dollar heist on Quebec’s maple syrup reserves.
