“The Sopranos” has carved out its own unique niche within television. One of the most acclaimed series in the history of the medium, the show continues to fascinate fans who watched it during its original 1999-2007 run, plus new viewers who are discovering the show two decades later.
In fact, “The Sopranos” remains about as close to perfection as a TV show can get. However, its creator still laments one thing in the show that he would have handled differently.
‘Sopranos’ Creator David Chase Had a Specific Worry About the Show
The series’ creator, David Chase, recently appeared at a reporters’ roundtable at the the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, held in the Czech Republic. During that discussion, he was asked about the enduring popularity of “The Sopranos.”
“Obviously, my heart explodes. It makes me feel so good,” he said, via The Hollywood Reporter. “At the same time, you have seen the show, so you know what my mother was like. So, at the same time, feeling good like that is not allowed. So when you say, ‘I’m so happy people like it,’ I say to myself, ‘You sound so conceited.’ And if it has an effect on people and how they live, or on the politics, or the socioeconomic situation, sure, but that’s not why I did it. My main goal was to be entertaining. But yeah, it’s the high point of my creative life.”
That said, he’s always held a concern about the show. “I’ve always been worried about ‘Sopranos,’” Chase added. “I thought for sure that a lot of the references wouldn’t work after a while, especially the comedic references, or when you mention a real person. I thought that’s going to fade away. It’s going to happen, right? It hasn’t happened yet, but we know it’s going to happen.”
His Biggest ‘Sopranos’ Regret
Looking back, Chase could only point to one thing throughout the series’ six-season run that he wished he could change. “We did a show where they went to Italy, and I would change that,” Chase recalled.
“I think we made the woman in the show too sexy and too hot,” he added, noting that when he’d rewatched the episode recently, “It just didn’t seem real when I saw it.”
‘The Sopranos’ Mirrored a Nation in Turmoil
Continuing to discuss the legacy of “The Sopranos,” Chase observed that the series connected with a lot of viewers in a way that wasn’t necessarily positive. “One of the things about ‘The Sopranos’ is that a lot of people in it were depressed, and this is going to sound so bad, but there’s a lot of unhappiness in the United States,” Chase said.
“There’s a lot of unhappiness everywhere, but … [traditionally,] America is supposed to be a happy country, and everyone wants to go there. So, we’re not used to thinking of ourselves as unhappy. We don’t like to deal with that, or it used to be that way. Now, I think, it’s changing.”
David Chase’s Next Project Surrounds LSD and the CIA
Last year, HBO announced the cable channel had reunited with Chase for a new project. Titled “Project MKUltra,” the upcoming miniseries will tell the true story of CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb, who headed the controversial MKUltra program. Gottlieb, per the logline, was involced with “conducting dangerous mind control experiments on subjects during the Cold War using psychedelic drugs, hypnosis and torture.”
According to Chase, he’s still in the midst of writing the scripts. “I’m in the story stage,” he said before summarizing the project. “LSD was invented in Switzerland, developed in Switzerland and our CIA bought millions and millions and millions of dollars of it because they wanted to weaponize it,” Chase said. “They said maybe we can [do that so] that people won’t have to get shot anymore in a war; they’ll just go crazy. That’s what their excuse was, but that was not what they cared about. So, there was a very large famous program called MKUltra in the United States, where they tested LSD on people. People have said that Charles Manson was probably given LSD somewhere.”
Per HBO’s description, “Project MKUltra” will be “a dramatic thriller centered on the infamous chemist and spymaster Sidney Gottlieb, often known as The Black Sorcerer, who headed the CIA’s MKUltra Psychedelic program which conducted dangerous and deadly mind control experiments on willing — and unwilling — subjects during the height of the Cold War. Gottlieb is also known as the unwitting godfather of the entire LSD counterculture.”
