The Many Saints of Newark star Alessandro Nivola was surprised to learn he was the film's lead. Releasing in theaters and HBO Max tomorrow, October 1, Many Saints of Newark is the highly anticipated Sopranos prequel film from the original series creator, David Chase, and frequent director Alan Taylor. Dickie Moltisanti (Nivola), the father of Christopher (Michael Imperioli), will be one of a few new characters introduced in the film who was mentioned in the hit HBO series, but never actually seen.

Set multiple decades before the events of The Sopranos, the prequel film chronicles the racial strife of the 1960s and 1970s in Newark through the conflict between Dickie's crew and his former numbers runner, Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr.). This conflict then ignites a war between the city's Italian and African American gangs. Michael Gandolfini stars as a teenage Tony Soprano, the role originated by his father in the series, who finds himself in the midst of this violent gang war.

Related: Why Many Saints of Newark Is Set In 1967: Riots True Story & History

Now, in an interview with Uproxx, Alessandro Nivola says he was surprised to learn he was the star of The Many Saints of Newark. After being sent five scenes from the script, Nivola auditioned for the role of Dickie Moltisanti. However, he didn't even realize he was the film's lead until he met David Chase and Alan Taylor and eventually read the entire script, discovering that he was in almost every scene. Read Nivola recount the experience below:

I mean, the funny thing was when I had auditioned for the role, I didn’t know. He’d only sent me five scenes from the movie. They were the five big, most climactic scenes of the film. Like a mime, I had to, in the privacy of my own bedroom, carry out ghoulish murders. But I didn’t have the whole script. And so I didn’t even realize that it was the lead of the movie when I first started taping these scenes. I thought the scenes were pretty good and that the character seemed pretty interesting, but I didn’t really understand the stakes of the whole thing until after I’d met David and Alan. And then I was on my way to the airport to go visit my wife (Emily Mortimer) in Australia, who was filming in Melbourne. And the script came through on my phone, and I got on the plane. And then I read it on the plane to Melbourne. And by the time I got there, the stakes had gone way up.

Dickie gifts Tony stolen speakers in The Many Saints Of Newark

Sopranos fans were certainly just as surprised as Nivola when they learned that Dickie was the film's lead. It was previously assumed that the prequel film would be a full-fledged Tony Soprano origin story and therefore led by Michael Gandolfini, just like his father was the focus of the famous HBO show. If not Tony, it was also speculated that his father, Johnny Boy Soprano (John Bernthal), would be the film's lead.

The film's title should have been the first indication that the Moltisantis would be its primary focus, given that the Italian surname roughly translates to "many saints." Other than Dickie, Ray Liotta's Aldo, aka "Hollywood Dick" will be another Moltisanti introduced in the film. With Dickie as its lead, Many Saints of Newark will examine the formative role that he played in his nephew Tony's life as a rebellious teenager to the New Jersey mob boss that audiences have come to know and love in The Sopranos.

Next: Why Many Saints of Newark Will Be More Like Goodfellas Than The Sopranos

Source: Uproxx

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