By CHRIS PLANANCE FOR MAILONLINE  

The series made TV history by remaking TV. It won dozens upon dozens awards, and its stars were made.

The Sopranos premiered 22 years ago, this January. They then wrapped up 86 episodes, six seasons, and finished airing them in 2007.

Mail Online now investigates what has happened since the curtain was lifted.

Iconic: The Sopranos first aired 22 years ago this January, before wrapping up 86 episodes and six seasons later, in 2007; the entire cast pictured in 1999

Iconic: The Sopranos first aired 22 years ago this January, before wrapping up 86 episodes and six seasons later, in 2007; the entire cast pictured in 1999

James Gandolfini – Tony Soprano 

James Gandolfini was the star of the show as James Gandolfini. He played the role of an anxiety-prone boss in a mob that had to balance the needs of his figurative family, the Mafia.

Gandolfini’s role combines the toughness expected of a mob boss, with the emotional side of a family patriarch and the vulnerability required to be repressed. His portrayal won him three Emmy Awards.

Tony Soprano

James Gandolfini

James Gandolfini, right in 2013, was a Tony Soprano star.

Unfortunately, actor Michael Douglas died from a heart attack while in Rome on vacation with his family.

Michael, his son found him unconscious at the hotel’s floor and alerted emergency personnel. He later died in hospital.

Michael was 23 years old when he played the role of a young Tony Soprano, in The Many Saints of Newark prequel film, released in 2021.

Michael Gandolfini

Michael pictured with dad James Gandolfini in 2007

Michael Gandolfini, now aged 22, is currently portraying a young Tony Soprano in prequel film The Many Saints of Newark (left in 2019) due for release in 2021

Edie Falco – Carmela Soprano

Tony’s wife, Tony’s trophy. She decided to ignore his numerous affairs and sources of income and instead focus on her income.

Carmela struggled with her children’s education against the backdrop of violence and immorality, even though she lived a luxurious life.

Carmela Soprano

Edie Falco

Edie Falco played Tony’s wife Carmela Soprano. (Photo: Left in her character in 2020).

Falco won five Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globes, and three Emmys as Carmela. He then went on to play the role of Nurse Jackie’s eponymous hero.

Louis C.K. was also a co-worker. in web series Horace and Pete, and as attorney Leslie Abramson in Law & Order True Crime.

She won the Tony Award in 2011 for her performance as Nurse Jackie in The House of Blue Leaves. From 2009 to 2015, Edie was the main character of Nurse Jackie on HBO.

Season three of Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story anthology series will feature Hillary Clinton. It airs in September 2021. The story follows President Bill Clinton’s sex scandal, and impeachment.

Jamie-Lynn Sigler – Meadow Soprano

Meadow, the principal of Meadow’s family is a victim to a notorious mobster. It has its own challenges. Meadow struggles to understand how her father earns his money and what benefits it gives her.

When The Sopranos aired its first episode, at age 17, she started acting.

Meadow Soprano

Jamie-Lynn Sigler

Jamie-Lynn Sigler, 17, was the first person to be cast in Meadow Soprano’s role (left). She has been a regular on TV ever since.

Between 2002 and 2003 she was Belle in the Broadway musical Beauty and the Beast. She also played the title role in Cinderella at Madison Square Garden 2001.

She has appeared on TV sporadic times since the end of the series, most recently as Entourage’s second series.

Also, she has appeared on Ugly Betty’s episodes and How I Met Your Mother’s. She also appears in The Lonely Island song Jizz in My Pants music video.

Sigler also dabbled in other areas – she released an album in 2001, which failed and she later admitted that it embarrassed her.

Robert Iler – AJ Soprano

Tony is Carmela’s youngest child. He starts the series as an innocent, but poorly-behaved, tearaway from the family that fails to meet his father’s expectations.

His innocence becomes shattered as he starts to display all the negative characteristics of Tony, which leads to depression.

AJ Soprano

Robert Iler

Robert Iler, who was only 13, was chosen to portray Tony’s younger son AJ. He had previously worked on commercials. He was in trouble during filming and has not worked in TV since. (Photo taken January 2019, right).

Robert, who was only 13, had appeared in a Pizza Hut commercial and was a part of SNL’s bit-parts before he got cast as AJ.

He appeared sporadically in other TV roles while the show was on air – including Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – and just one since, also in Law & Order.

Robert was charged with armed robbery and possessing marijuana in Upper East Side. Robert was rehabilitated from his addiction to drugs in 2013

Lorraine Bracco – Jennifer Melfi

Tony had Jennifer as his psychiatrist, and he used him to express anxiety. He also suffered from deeply suppressed emotions. Jennifer was fascinated by Tony and the mobster.

Tony’s colleagues, her loved ones, and her better nature advised her to end her relationship with Tony. She never-the-less committed to supporting him. 

Jennifer Melfi

Lorraine Bracco

A star of Goodfellas, Bracco (right in 2019)  agreed to work on The Sopranos only if she could play Tony’s morally conflicted psychiatrist Jennifer Melfi (left). Since then, she has been appearing in movies and television (pictured above this year) and voiceacted in Bojack Horseman.

Bracco, a former model and the wife Harvey Kietel was featured in Goodfellas, starring alongside Robert de Niro, before she got her Sopranos part.

Bracco indicated that, despite her desire to play Carmela by David Chase, she wouldn’t sign up if Dr Melfi was given to her.

She appeared extensively in other shows and films during The Sopranos’ run, including Riding In Cars With Boys and Law & Order: Trial by Jury.

After the show ended, she appeared in TV movies Long Island Confidential, I Married a Mobster series and Blue Bloods. She also acted as a voice actor for Bojack Horseman.

Bracco bought a house in Sambuca di Sicilia that had been 200-years-old for one Euro. This home was then used to make renovations for her HGTV series My Big Italian Adventure.

Christopher Moltisanti and Michael Imperioli

Tony’s cousin and mobster distantly related, Christopher, is motivated by success and fame. This puts him in conflict with Tony and his’strong, quiet type’ image, as well as with his older colleagues.

The character of his wife is also drug addicted. He abuses her often and gets whacked.

Christopher Moltisanti

Michael Imperioli

Michael Imperioli, a Goodfellas veteran before being cast (left to right) as Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos. He has maintained his roles as actor and screenwriter ever since.

His portrayal of the role in 2004 earned him a Primetime Emmy.

A veteran actor, he starred alongside Bracco in Goodfellas and made appearances in Jungle Fever (Bad Boys) and Malcolm X.

Imperioli played Detective Ray Carling in the US adaptation of British cop show Life On Mars, and followed fellow Sopranos cast members into the Law & Order series, playing NYPD Detective Nick Falco.

He was Detective Louis Fitch on the ABC drama Detroit 1-8-7, which was eventually cancelled. Christopher achieved his dream to write a feature movie in 2008 with The Hungry Ghosts.

Michael was a regular on many series, such as The Sopranos’ Californication, Hawaii Five-0, and Blue Bloods.

Andrea Donna de Matteo – Adriana La Cerva

Christopher’s girlfriend-turned-wife, she is vain, obsessed with money and material goods, and desperate for fame.

She is often a victim to Christopher’s violence, but she refuses the opportunity to be a part of the family’s most intimate secrets.

Adriana la Cerva

Andrea Donna de Matteo

In 2019, Andrea Donna de Matteo was portrayed as Adriana la Cerva, a shallow, materialistic, foolish, and vain character. Since then, she has been acting and has played Joey Tribbiani’s sister in Friends spin-off TV series Joey

In 2004, Matteo and Imperioli won Primetime Emmy awards for their roles.

It was her Sopranos stardom that launched a successful silver screen career, which included appearances on Swordfish, Assault on Precinct 13 Dark Places, and Sex, Death, and Bowling.

Matteo also has appeared on numerous television shows, since The Sopranos’ end. He was Joey Tribbiani’s sister Gina in Friends spinoff Joey.

Desperate Housewives and Sons of Anarchy were also starring in her.

Dominic Chianese – Corrado ‘Junior’ Soprano

Tony is a power-hungry, petulant and resentful uncle. He conspires early with his mother to get him whacked in order to take control of the family.

Tony outplays him at the game for power and he eventually becomes confused and frail after a bout with dementia.

Corrado 'Junior' Soprano

Dominic Chianese

Dominic Chianese, a good friend to Al Pacino (right in 2019, was an actor who had previously worked in film when he played the role of Corrado Junior Soprano (left). He continued to act after that, appearing in Boardwalk Empire.

Al Pacino and Chianese were good friends. Chianese starred in The Godfather Part II.

His 80s saw him continue to work, with voice roles in Mr. Popper’s Penguins and TV appearances on Boardwalk Empire as well as The Good Wife.

This year, he appeared in The Village on NBC. The drama is about a Brooklyn block of apartments and its residents. In February 2021, the star turned 90 years old.

Aida Turturro – Janice Soprano

Tony’s sister, an older and more mature woman, fled the troubles of her family to escape them. She returns home to New Jersey, where she lives in a mob lifestyle.

Tony is her work-shy and manipulative partner. It was formed out of their common childhood trauma.

Janice Soprano

Aida Turturro

Aida Turturro, right in 2017, was Tony’s manipulative and selfish sister Janice in The Sopranos. She was later brought back to play a permanent part. She has appeared in Blue Bloods and Law & Order since then, along with many of her former colleagues

Following the series finale in 2007, Turturro has appeared sporadically in film and TV, following many Sopranos alumni into roles in Blue Bloods and Law & Order.

She was reunited in 2012 with Edie Flaco on an episode of Nurse Jackie. In addition, she appeared in ER and Curb Your Enthusiasm as well as Brooklyn Nine Nine.

Aida made a dramatic weight loss transition in 2020, when she looked much slimmer in The Blacklist.

Tony Sirico – Paulie Gualtieri

Paulie, Tony’s right-hand man is as vicious and paranoid as Tony, often hitting his boss’ enemies and friends who are not loyal.

Tony’s loyalty and his murdering temperament see Tony rise up the ranks, becoming the underboss in the DiMeo crime family.

Sirico was born and raised in Brooklyn. He was once a member of the real-life street gang and could be seen with Caporegime Jimmy Clemenza and Vincent Pastore, a fellow Sopranos actor.

Paulie Gualtieri

Tony Sirico

Tony Sirico was a true-life gangster, who spent a lot of his youth in jail. Tony (right) agreed to take on the role of Paulie Gualtieri (left), as a paranoid mobster. He will only do this if he does not become snitch.

Tony Sirico was a true-life gangster, who spent a lot of his youth in prison. He agreed to take on the role of Paulie Gualtieri (left), a paranoid mobster under one condition: he will never become snitch.

Following being visited by an assortment of former convicts in prison, he decided to act after serving time for robbery & felony weapons possession.

Junior initially looked at him but he was convinced to take on the role. Paulie would never be a snitch.

He has appeared in sporadic TV and film appearances, such as Family Guy, American Dad! and Lilyhammer, since The Sopranos.

He also was set to return to the Sopranos part in The Many Saints of Newark, which was released lastyear. However, his health has prevented him to play his original role.

 Sirico died on July 8, 2022 at an assisted living facility in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Steve Van Zandt – Silvio Dante

Silvio, the cool, collected and stylish owner of the Bada Bing, the hangout and headquarters for the Gang, is calm and collected.

Tony trusted Tony as his adviser, and often he selects him to perform high-level executions on Christopher’s girlfriend Adriana.

Zandt is well-known for other professions than acting, but he was already famous before The Sopranos. He is a former member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and plays guitar and mandolin.

Silvio Dante

Steve Van Zandt

Bandanna-wearing Van Zandt (right, 2019) later admitted that Silvio (left), his luscious locks were just a hairpiece. His successful music career has seen him inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014. He was the guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.

He was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Springsteen for his contributions to the music. In the 1980s, Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul were his own bands.

Zandt continued acting pursuits after Sopranos. Zandt starred and co-wrote Netflix’s Lilyhammer. This series also featured Tony Sirico.

Also, he appeared on Netflix’s The Christmas Chronicles (2018).

Bobby Baccalieri & Steve R Schirripa

Bobby Baccalieri, a unique character in the mob, was described as loving, caring, generous, loyal to his wife and a kind-hearted person.

Junior’s senior crew member, he becomes a caregiver for his boss, who is now ill with cancer. Tony marries Janice, the sister of Tony.

Bobby Baccalieri

Steve R Schirripa

Bobby Baccalieri, left (played by Steve R Schirripa in 2019), was a rare and beloved mobster. Since the show, he has worked in TV and has written books for children. He also launched his own brand of vegan pasta sauces.

Schirripa, who played Baccalieri in the series Blue Bloods, has continued to appear on television and film.

Additionally, he has diversified from acting to write books about his mob personality as well as stories for children.

Schirripa created a Nickelodeon movie from Nicky Deuce’s kid’s book and launched his own line of vegan pasta sauces in 2014.