‘Sopranos’ star James Gandolfini swam in the ocean after drinking as troubled actor battled demons off set

Mark Kamine feared he must save James Gandolfini’s life.

It was simply after midnight in Hollywood, Florida, and the solid of “The Sopranos” had completed filming for the day. After loads of drinking, lodge workers warned the crew that they had been too noisy, prompting everybody to move all the way down to the seaside.

“We were getting complaints,” Kamine, writer of “On Locations,” instructed Fox News Digital.

‘SOPRANOS’ STAR JAMES GANDOLFINI STRUGGLED ON SET FROM ‘EXCESSES OF CONSUMPTION’: BOOK

Mark Kamine recalled befriending James Gandolfini on the set of “The Sopranos.” (Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)

“We got a whole cooler full of beer,” he shared. “It’s really late, we’ve been drinking, and we have a 9 o’clock flight tomorrow. And then Jim suggests a late-night swim in the ocean. You could hear the waves and it was dark. I thought, ‘This is bad.’ I’m the only production person here, and I just imagined him being swallowed up by that ocean.”

“I remember telling Jim, ‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’” Kamine continued. “’Do we really have to do this? Please don’t do this.’ Let’s just say I was totally ignored. I kept telling him how there might be a rip current. He just smirked and said, ‘What, you’re gonna save me Mark?’ and ran in. I just stood there, waiting for him to come out, hoping he wouldn’t disappear. I just couldn’t control him, but I felt like I needed to say something.”

“That ended my drinking for the night,” Kamine added.

James Gandolfini wasn’t afraid to take dangers, particularly whereas drinking, in keeping with a brand new e-book. (Anthony Neste/Getty Images)

In the HBO sequence, Gandolfini starred as Tony Soprano, the brutish mob boss with a tortured psyche. Kamine scouted places throughout the present’s six-season run. 

But when cameras stopped rolling, Kamine witnessed a very completely different persona.

“He was shy,” Kamine recalled. “He wasn’t a boisterous or loud personality. He wasn’t scary – Tony often was. Jim pretty much kept to himself… But then, you saw this powerful character who commanded a room. He became Tony so quickly on set. But it wasn’t easy, even for him.”

“You saw how disturbed he would get by the things he had to say in character,” Kamine revealed. “He would try to argue with [creator] David [Chase], ‘I don’t want to say these words. I don’t see the reason why he has to be overtly outspokenly racist or sexist.’ David was always like, ‘But that’s the character, Jim. Get used to it.’ Jim understood that, but it just hurt him to be that way. He wasn’t like that at all.”

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Mark Kamine has written a e-book titled “On Locations” about his time on “The Sopranos” set. (Steerforth )

Despite his quiet demeanor, Gandolfini was beneficiant on set and didn’t suppose twice about providing a serving to hand to whoever wanted it.

“He would write checks for people,” stated Kamine. “Every Friday night he would pay for this enormous banquet of sushi for the shooting crew. I remember every Friday night, trucks would just roll out, and this massive spread would come out – and it didn’t matter where we were filming. He was really a great guy.”

But Gandolfini additionally had a unique facet. His drinking was well-known on set, Kamine alleged.

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano and Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano are seen searching for counseling in HBO’s hit tv sequence, “The Sopranos.” (HBO)

“We lost dates because of that,” Kamine claimed. “HBO wrote it into a contract one year that he would pay [if he missed a day] because it was very expensive to film a show like that. I think at the time it could cost $150,000 – $250,000 per day. No one likes to lose that kind of money and not get anything done. I know that they wrote into his contract that he would pay for any days that he missed. I don’t think they ever charged him.”

“He had those issues,” Kamine mirrored. “I think part of his personality was overcoming the shyness or being uncomfortable with so much success so quickly. Who knows?”

Gandolfini grew to become “increasingly unreliable” a number of seasons into “The Sopranos” as his drinking grew to become more durable for the actor to cover whereas filming, Kamine claimed in his e-book. In it, he wrote about an incident when the actor stayed out all night time in Atlantic City and confirmed as much as work late and unprepared.

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“The Sopranos” aired on HBO from 1999 to 2007. (Getty Images)

Kamine described that whereas taking pictures the season 4 “Pie-O-My” episode, Gandolfini and several other others went out one night time in the playing hotspot.

“I’m at the lodge bar when the crew member closest to Jim asks if I need to go all the way down to Atlantic City with Jim and some others. It’s over an hour away. I decline,” he wrote in the e-book. “The next morning I’m not surprised when Jim cannot be roused.”

Kamine stated Gandolfini lastly arrived about 4 hours late to the set.

James Gandolfini and Jamie-Lynn Sigler attend the HBO Emmy after celebration at the Pacific Design Center on Sept. 16, 2007, in Los Angeles. (Stephen Shugerman/Getty Images)

“We get through the day with an extra hour and a half of shooting but without falling behind, Jim cursing his way through his half-learned lines, doing take after take, drinking coffees and bottles of water, alternately sheepish and churlish, the way he always is when he f—s up,” Kamine wrote.

Gandolfini died in 2013 at age 51. His reason for dying was a coronary heart assault.

A GQ article revealed round the time of Gandolfini’s dying detailed the results the “punishing role” of taking part in a sociopathic mobster had on the actor.

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A view of the program given out at the funeral for actor James Gandolfini at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on June 27, 2013, in New York City. Gandolfini handed away on June 19, 2013, whereas vacationing in Rome, Italy. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images)

Playing “Tony Soprano would always require to some extent being Tony Soprano,” the outlet claimed, including that “In papers related to a divorce filing at the end of 2002, Gandolfini’s wife described increasingly serious issues with drugs and alcohol, as well as arguments during which the actor would repeatedly punch himself in the face out of frustration. To anybody who had witnessed the actor’s self-directed rage as he struggled to remember lines in front of the camera – he would berate himself in disgust, curse, smack the back of his own head – it was a plausible scenario.”

In his e-book, Kamine described attending Gandolfini’s funeral, the place lots of of individuals gathered at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. He additionally recalled the aftermath of shedding the beloved star.

Mark Kamine attends the HBO Emmys Party at San Vicente Bungalows on Sept. 12, 2022, in West Hollywood, California. (David Livingston/Getty Images)

“I’ll hear [writer] Terry Winter talk in a radio interview about the shock he felt on hearing the news, and I’ll hear David say later that unlike Terry, he has been expecting this call for years,” Kamine wrote. “He means, I take it, that Jim’s overindulgence and binging wildness, weight gain and lack of care taken with himself could lead only to this, an early death. As usual, it’s hard to argue with David’s way of seeing things.”

Today, Kamine serves as an government producer for “The White Lotus.”

“’The Sopranos’ still has an enormous influence,” Kamine instructed Fox News Digital. “I felt it was time to look back. It was one of those rare, wonderful experiences that you couldn’t ever have predicted.”