Many of us earn a paycheck by working, but James Gandolfini was reportedly compensated handsomely to abstain from a role.
Gandolfini enjoyed a remarkable career prior to his untimely death in 2013. The actor passed away at the age of 51 due to a heart attack while vacationing in Rome, Italy.
In the years before his death, he had completed filming The Sopranos, where he famously portrayed Tony Soprano in the acclaimed HBO series for six seasons.
In addition to his role in The Sopranos, Gandolfini appeared in films such as The Drop, Enough Said, Zero Dark Thirty, and The Last Castle.
Interestingly, Gandolfini was considered for a role in another popular TV series, The Office.
The sitcom, which was on air from 2005 to 2013, helped launch the careers of actors like Steve Carell and John Krasinski and garnered multiple awards.
Following Carell’s departure after the seventh season, NBC allegedly approached Gandolfini to fill his shoes.
On the Talking Sopranos podcast, Gandolfini’s former co-stars Michael Imperioli and Steve Schrippa discussed how their late colleague was interested in the opportunity but received a more enticing offer from HBO.
“I think before James Spader and after Carell, they offered Jim — I want to say $4 million — to play him for the season,” Schrippa recounted.
“HBO paid him $3 million not to do it,” he continued.
“Jim was going to do it because he hadn’t worked and it was a number of years removed from when the show ended.”
Joining the podcast episode as a guest, Ricky Gervais praised HBO’s decision to pay Gandolfini not to take the role.
Reflecting on why HBO made this choice, the original creator of The Office speculated: “So they paid him that to keep the legacy of The Sopranos pure?”
Schirripa replied, “I guess that and also he had a deal with them.”
Gandolfini was believed to have been set to star in A Night Of for HBO, but following his unexpected passing, John Turturro assumed the role.
Their assertions about Gandolfini being considered for the NBC sitcom were also supported by The Office writer Daniel Chun.
In Andy Green’s book, The Office (The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History), Chun reflected on Gandolfini: “I remember him being really, really complimentary, but he wasn’t super familiar with the show.”
“He had watched a few episodes and was really unsure about comedy. He was like, ‘I don’t one hundred percent know how to play this.”