Toward the end of The Sopranos’ third season, Michael Imperioli’s Christopher and Tony Sirico’s Paulie get lost in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. This episode—simply titled “Pine Barrens”—is one of the best in a series filled with stiff competition for that distinction. It’s part-buddy comedy, part-horror story, and a great exploration of two of the show’s main characters. It’s also the subject of a new oral history from The Ringer that provides insight into The Sopranos’ creative process, the origins of the episode’s premise—and just how difficult it is to get Sirico to agree to intentionally mess up his hairdo.
“Pine Barrens” originates with a story meeting for the show’s second season, when Sopranos writer/director Tim Van Patten shared a dream he had about Paulie and Christopher unable to escape the New Jersey woods after a failed hit. Creator David Chase liked the idea and writer Terence Winter ended up scripting the episode that would be directed by series actor/director Steve Buscemi the following year.
Imperioli says that “from the beginning, we had a sense that it was going to be good” and Buscemi remembers reading the episode’s script and thinking “that it was gold.” A lot of the appeal came from putting Paulie and Christopher in a situation where the pair had to survive with only each other to rely on. Director Alan Taylor, commenting on the pair’s dynamic, says that “in this day and age, [Paulie and Christopher] would have their own spinoff, probably.”
The oral history also includes fantastic material regarding what it was like to work with Sirico. Winter says “there’s a very, very thin line between Pauli and Tony Sirico,” and that “they’re practically the same person.” This bears out in stories from filming the episode, like Sirico requiring a production assistant to make “a four- or five-hour round trip” to get his pillows from home since he didn’t like the hotel’s and Buscemi remembering the process involved in convincing him to let someone mess with his hair—which he “was very particular” about.
It’s best to read Terence Winters’ quote on this topic in full.
“The two ways to get Tony to do something was if you told him, ‘You will be really scary or you’ll be really funny.’ I said, ‘Tony, you will be so fucking funny for the audience to see you, who they’ve never seen except looking like a movie star, with your hair [messy].’ So he took like two fingers and just messed up three hairs. I was like, ‘Tony, come on. Come on, man.’ He’s like, ‘All right you motherfucker,’ and he put his hands through his hair and he completely messed up his hair. I said, ‘Thank you so much.’ I turned to Steve Buscemi, I said, ‘Roll camera. Get this on fucking film. It’s not going to happen again.’”
Read the rest of the article for more on the making of “Pine Barrens”—including Chase’s thoughts on leaving open endings in stories, Buscemi’s drunken Ramones karaoke, Steve Schirripa making James Gandolfini laugh on camera by swinging around a giant dildo, and much more.
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44 Comments
Best part of it: it totally reinforces that mafiosos are entirely, woefully inept at anything but the barbarism they’re steeped in.
I remember a TIME magazine article (I’m old) when “The Sopranos” came out, at the show’s peak popularity. In addition to the showrunners, the journo also interviewed an FBI agent who worked in the Bureau’s organized crime office. The agent said he enjoyed the show! But he also cautioned against the romanticism of the Mafia. “These are people,” he said, “whom you don’t want to know.”
Easily one of the best episodes!
“You’re not gonna believe this. He killed sixteen Czechoslovakians. The guy was an interior decorator.”“His house looked like shit.”that shit made me laugh uncontrollably.
It’s one of those parts of the episode that you know is coming up, and you’ve seen it a hundred times, but you still laugh like hell both in anticipation and when the line hits.
“We should’ve went to Roy Rogers!”“And I should’ve fucked Dale Evans!”
Michael Imperioli’s baffled delivery is quite possibly my single favorite line of anything ever.
Its the best line in the entire series. I will hear no substitute.
It was a great read. Thanks.
“Pine Barrens” originates with a story meeting for the show’s second season, when Sopranos writer/director Tim Van Patten shared a dream he had about Paulie and ChristopherI said, ‘Thank you so much.’ I turned to Steve Buscemi, I said, ‘Roll camera. Get this on fucking film. It’s not going to happen again.’”
Is Van Patten directing this episode, or just a director in general, or why are they telling Buscemi to roll camera?And is this the same Tim Van Patton as Class of 1984?
It is indeed the same Tim Van Patten. Buscemi directed.
No it’s Max Keller
“You think cold bothers me? I wash my balls with ice water!”— ValeryI fucking love that line. As someone who grew up with really, really cold winters, I was like, yeah, that guy gets it.
TIC TACS?!?!?!
From the linked oral history:
Editor’s note: According to his manager, Sirico was not available to be interviewed.I saw him and the rest of the cast on that 20th anniversary retrospective a couple years ago, and sadly he didn’t look too good – he actually seemed older and less with it than Dominic Chianese, aka Uncle Junior. I recall him being unable to articulate his memories a few times and generally seemed to have difficulty following the discussion. Hope he’s doing OK.
Holy shit, based on your comment decided to do a quick search and found a recent interview from 2020. Wow. In his defense, dude is almost 80. He’s looking a little rough, but I guess that’s to be expected for an 80 year old. You just have to first accept the startling reality that it’s been 20 years since this episode first aired.
The last time I saw him was as himself on an episode of Family Guy, telling the writers to “watch it!” as they were making fun of the names of Italian foods. He also did the voice of Brian’s replacement, Vinnie the Dog, a few years earlier.
For sure, it’s not like he was a spring chicken in the show. It’s crazy how some 80-year-olds retain their cognitive abilities largely intact and others decline more quickly.
Every grand parent I’ve had, I remember them as being strong, healthy, completely functional, until they hit the stretch between 78 and 82 and their age suddenly accelerating, like gravity suddenly took over or something. None of them made it past 86. On the flip side, my wife’s grandmother was in relatively good health until she hit 90, and hung on until covid took her last year two months shy of her 99th birthday.
I’m sorry for your loss. Similar here… my mom comes from a farming family of 14 kids (!) who routinely hit 90+, with the women often reaching into the late 90s, and lucid all the way. My Baba (grandma) died at 103. My dad’s family is the opposite; late 70s is a good run for them. My dad turned 80 this year and he has just started to show signs of cognitive decline (repeats himself, forgets what he’s saying occasionally, etc.). Physically he’s in better shape than me at 42 (which isn’t saying much).
This is made even more timely by the current worldwide shortage of ketchup packets. We are all Paulie and Christopher rifling through the glove compartment looking for condiments…
…Sirico requiring a production assistant to make “a four- or five-hour round trip” to get his pillows from home since he didn’t like the hotel’s…What a delightful rapscallion, it must have been a pleasure to work with him!
That gave me shudders remembering my years as a PA. I’ve never experienced so much gleeful, heartless cruelty than when I had to cater to some B or C list actors or mid-level producers. The PA probably wasn’t reimbursed for gas or overtime and probably got screamed at for bringing the wrong pillowcase too.
Dang that sucks. I bet you’ve got some war stories. Any you want to share?
Yeah he really doesn’t come off well in this.Imperioli: We were in similar circles. If you weren’t a friend of his, he could be very mean-spirited. And I’ll be honest: I didn’t really like him. So when we got cast on [The Sopranos] pilot, I’m like, “Fuck! What’s it going to be like having to work with this guy?”Winter: There’s a very, very thin line between Paulie and Tony Sirico. They’re practically the same person.I don’t understand why I hit the same quote button twice and got two different results. Never change, kinja.
Yea my whole personal connection with the Sopranos is weirdly fraught. On one hand, it is undeniably brilliant television – the story telling, the characters, the tragedy, the comedy, the betrayal – it’s all there. On the other hand – I grew up in North Jersey. My hometown was one of the ones where the Sopranos occasionally filmed. And I went to school with kids whose dads were “contractors” or “in sanitation” and would randomly show up in the middle of a work day, nice car, gold chains, and buy everyone pizza. Or freak out on their kid and beat them with a shoe. So I grew up with/around these people, and even more so, the folks who want to emulate these people. And they’re fucking assholes. Macho tough guys who cannot accept being wrong, cannot accept any perception of weakness, cannot accept the possibility that theirs is not the biggest dick in the room. So while I enjoyed the Sopranos, I had to take it in small measures because I’d frankly already had my fill of this specific brand of toxic personality. And just as with The Godfather, and Goodfellas, and Scarface, the point of the show went way over a lot of people’s heads and folks started to see Tony and his gang as cool, as role models, as an example of how to behave and what it means to be a man. I don’t know Sirico. I’ve never met him, and I’ve only seen two or three interviews with him. But if I was that production assistant I almost certainly would have rubbed my taint on his pillows.
Winter says “there’s a very, very thin line between Pauli and Tony Sirico,” and that “they’re practically the same person.”I wonder if Sirico realizes that Paulie was widely viewed as an insecure toady. That’s an interview question I would pay to see, lol.
Ok but did Tony die or notI actually really like the idea that it was Patsy who set him up in the end even though it’s probably total guff
Second time around watching it, I definitely think the Members Only guy lurking in the background came out of the bathroom and whacked Tony at that moment. Given the whole discussion he had with Bobby how “you probably don’t hear it coming” showed up in the finale makes it a strong possibility. As to who, my theory was one of the New York guys (probably that crooked eyed fuck Butchie) in Phil’s crew, or another New York family. Sure, they agreed to back off because the Phil thing was getting out hand but Tony himself wondered if they really would back off or finish what Phil started. Tony’s troubles were far from over after killing Phil, indictments aside.
Nah, Man in Members Only Jacket is a relative of Eugene who hung himself when Tony wouldn’t let him out in the episode called “Members Only.” I admit it’s a bit of a stretch to say “they both wore the same brand of outdated jacket they must be related” but there’s no other reason to credit that guy as “Man in Members Only Jacket.”
The episode “Members Only” was referring to the jacket often associated with East Coast mobsters (second only to the track suit) but the episode title alludes more to the mafia being an exclusive society that you can’t just up and quit. Eugene wanted to get out of the life for his family’s sake but Tony said no.The reason they credited the guy as “Man in Members Only Jacket” is simply because he was a nameless guy with no speaking lines wearing a distinguishable powder blue Members Only jacket. Still, while it’s tempting to believe it’s Eugene’s cousin out for revenge it seems, as you said, a bit of a stretch.
It can be two things!It’d be a stretch in reality, but symbolism wise I think it makes a lot of sense. “Man at bar” would have worked too.
Eugene was one of my favorite background characters especially when he’s blowing his nose during the Columbus Day episode. I knew it was a bad sign when he gets his own episode. Ultimately it could have been anyone, but I can understand the appeal of the Justice For Gene theory.My favorite pet theory during The Wire was that the reason we never saw Mrs. Prez was because she never existed. It was all an elaborate Busom Buddies style mishap where Prez poses as Valchek’s long lost daughter looking to reconnect. The why isn’t important, because the kid shot up his own cruiser with own service weapon so who knows what the fuck he’s thinking? Anyways, one day Valchek catches Prez in his house coming out of the shower and asks “Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my daughter’s house, shitbird?”“Uh…I’m…Roland. I’m…your daughter’s fiancee. But everyone calls me Prez.”So that’s how Prez ended up working for the Baltimore PD. Unfortunately, she finally shows up in a scene at home with dialogue in Season 4, which shoots it all to shit. Gotta dream big, though.
I will be very happy when we stop calling all interviews oral histories.
Yeah this ain’t exactly Lipstick Traces here.
I don’t think we’re doing that. An oral history is distinct because it’s a set of interviews with different people, spliced together to be read chronologically. It’s an accepted form.
Ok fine. The amount of oral histories about anything and everything is ridiculous. A few days ago there was an oral history about a Sum 41 song. It needs to stop.
Chill out, not everything is for you. I’m sure some Sum 41 enthusiasts were delighted to see it.
I like Sum 41, but on oral history about how some teenagers wrote a pop punk song is insanity. If it was an oral history about how DMX made a cameo in the video for their song “Makes No Difference,” that would be a lot more interesting of a story to tell.
I’ve never seen an episode of The Sopranos, but I just came here to say I’m surprised more horror/suspence/comedy/drama movies and TV shows aren’t set in the Pine Barrens. For being so close to the NYC and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, its a surprisingly large tract of undeveloped land. The dense forests, bogs and lack of easily identifiable geographic features and man-made structures makes getting lost extremely easy. Add in local legends like the Jersey devil, the Blue Hole, the White Stag, the Black Dog, or the Black Doctor, and your spec script practically writes itself. Canoe or camping trips going wrong, teenagers taking a wrong turn on the way down the shore, mobsters dumping bodies… endless possibilities.
You should write a script where all those creatures are competing over the limited supply of horny drunken local teens.
HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE??????? go watch some immediately
The X-Files did a Jersey devil episode in one of the earlier seasons.
The Pine Barrens don’t remotely feel like New Jersey. Feels closer to rural Pennsylvania or even parts of Maryland. Its night and day compared to the rest of the state. Absolutely fascinating, definitely needs more filming.