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The uncommon decency of James Gandolfini
When I heard the news of James Gandolfini’s death on June 19 2013, sadness was offset by warm memories of when I worked on a movie he was in — Surviving Christmas — back in 2003 (released in 2004).
As the name of the movie suggests, Surviving Christmas was a Christmas comedy. It starred Ben Affleck, who at the time was in the eye of the celebrity storm as a result of his high profile relationship (first time round) with Jennifer Lopez. Gandolfini was the main co-star and I was there as Ben Affleck’s stand-in and photo double, which in terms of status on a Hollywood movie production places you somewhere between the ground and a blade of grass (okay slight exaggeration perhaps, but you know what I mean).
I had been in Hollywood a few years by then, been on countless movie and TV sets, and seen most of the major stars of the day up close. The days of being excited by Hollywood, of experiencing butterflies in my stomach as I drove over to Warner Bros or Paramount or Disney Studios to work on a movie or TV show, were by this point well behind me. Now it was mostly drudgery.
This said, one of the few stars still capable of inducing that buzz of excitement I had lost when it came to the movie industry was James Gandolfini. Along with probably the entire western world by this point, I was a huge fan of The Sopranos and especially…
