More and more, you're seeing television shows that are better than 99% of the movies out there. I mean, you watch something like the last couple of seasons of 'The Sopranos,' which is some of the most sophisticated writing I've ever seen filmed and some of the best filmmaking I've ever seen - and it's a TV show.
Adam Scott
The best TV is always about family, whether it's 'All in the Family,' or 'The Sopranos' or 'The Flintstones.'
Adrian Pasdar
'Heroes', 'Desperate Housewives', 'The Sopranos' - they're all very stylised. 'The Wire' is much more rooted in realism and honesty. In American television, I can't think of anything I'd rather have been in because it has got something to say and that is the kind of thing I want to do.
Aidan Gillen
Sunday is like this entertainment scrum for me, because I've only got a day, one day of fun. So I want to have brunch, and I want to see a movie, and I want to watch 'Game of Thrones,' and I'm trying to watch 'The Sopranos' from the beginning, and I want to play four hours of video games. So, it's, like, as regimented as my work life.
Aisha Tyler
The scripts of 'The Wire' are fantastic - the scripts of 'Breaking Bad,' the scripts of 'Mad Men,' the scripts of 'The Sopranos,' the scripts of 'Battlestar Galactica.' You could keep going on. They're incredibly well written.
Alex Garland
I think that 'The Sopranos' uses music incredibly well.
Alexandra Patsavas
I'm not one of these people who say how much better American drama is than English. I find it mostly too American, except for The Sopranos, which I think is the best thing.
Andrew Davies
I watched 'The Sopranos,' I saw a couple of episodes of 'Mad Men.' I loved 'Seinfeld.' In fact, I got some CDs of 'Seinfeld.' 'Seinfeld' was hilarious. Oh, boy. The Nazi soup kitchen? 'No soup for you!'
Antonin Scalia
'The Wire's definitely one of them. 'The Sopranos' is one of my all-time favorites. Those are two big ones for me.
Ben Bass
I remember turning 'The Sopranos' on once and within two minutes nearly throwing a brick through the screen.
Camille Paglia
Being on 'The Sopranos' definitely prepared me for the militant secrecy of 'Mad Men.'
Cara Buono
I had some experience when I joined 'The Sopranos' in the last season. My character married Christopher, and everyone loved Adriana. I knew what it was like to join a very beloved, secretive show and following a very iconic character.
It's funny - I was a big fan of 'The Sopranos.' It became kind of a threat to 'The X-Files' in a way because they could play with language, character, and story in ways that we never could because of the limitations of network television.
Chris Carter
I am box-set girl; I buy into those big American series like 'The Sopranos' and 'Heroes.'
Claudia Winkleman
I remember watching episodes of 'The Sopranos' and being filled with dread knowing what was coming or anticipating what was coming. I don't think that that's always a bad thing. I think sometimes the audience needs a little catharsis held away from them.
Courtney A. Kemp
My character on 'The Sopranos' was specific to being a single mother and being from Jersey. And being part of that season finale... wow. That show is always going to be world-renowned and iconic.
Dania Ramirez
'The Sopranos' was a very East Coast show; 'Heroes' is more organically global.
There was certainly less profanity in the Godfather than in the Sopranos. There was a kind of respect. It's not that I totally agreed with it, but it was a great piece of art.
Danny Aiello
I don't know anyone who curses the way they do on the Sopranos. Not in an Italian household. I never said the word hell in front of my mother.
I think that the difference between 'The Sopranos' and the shows that came before it was that it was really personal. There had been a lot of dramas, a lot of really good ones, a lot of really bad ones, but they were always franchise shows about cops, or doctors, or lawyers. They weren't about the writer himself.
David Chase
'The Sopranos' is filled with really retrograde humor. Bathroom humor, falls, stupid puns, bad jokes - infantile, adolescent stuff, but it makes me laugh.
When we were doing 'The Sopranos', I used to love that about it. There were rules, Mafia codes you had to go by, but the code is ridiculous. It's a code among sociopaths.
When I was doing 'The Sopranos', I liked putting music together with the film; that was my favorite part of it.
I was on a show called '12 Miles of Bad Road' with Lily Tomlin - it was an incredible HBO show. We shot 6 episodes, previewed it before the finale of 'The Sopranos;' it was written up as a 'Great New Show on HBO,' and then the whole thing was canned. Gone. Disappeared. That's when I realized anything can happen in this business.
I like to watch the Fox News Network. I like 'Nightline.' I like to watch 'The Sopranos,' of course. That is one of my favorite shows. 'Entourage' is another one. I like 'The Shield.'
It's people politics, people dynamics that make a show really good, whether it's 'Desperate Housewives' or 'Lost' or 'The Sopranos.' It's the people we've grown to love or otherwise.
I think 'The Sopranos' probably solidifies the misconception that people have about New Jersey to begin with. Because you're from Jersey, and everybody has an accent, you are perceived a certain way. I don't know if they are jealous or in awe or look down their nose at you, but that's the way life is. If you don't like it, change the channel.
The government itself is running exactly like the Sopranos and they sit back and they make deals. And they say okay, 'I'm going do this: France, you're getting the pipelines.'
I didn't watch T.V. from the time I was 18 'til my mid-30s. And then I got a T.V. to watch 'The Sopranos.' I realized, 'Oh, T.V. is really interesting.'
'The Sopranos' all came down to the writing. I wouldn't have been on for as long as I was if the writing weren't so good.
If you look at 'The Sopranos,' there's this notion of a criminal element on its last legs.
Like 'Twin Peaks,' '24,' 'Mad Men,' and 'The Sopranos' before it, 'Downton Abbey' enriches the iconography and collective lore of pop culture. It replenishes the stream.
It frustrates me that Britain can't make something like 'CSI' or 'The Sopranos'. Instead, British TV puts soap in primetime while every other civilized nation leaves it in daytime. Viewers should be more demanding.
Between 'The Godfather,' 'The Sopranos,' 'Goodfellas,' and the countless other mob stories that have been both critically and commercially acclaimed over the years, it's not hard to see why a game like 'Mafia Wars' works.
The way that Dickens structured his books has a form that we most readily recognize now from, say, the great T.V. series, like 'The Wire' or 'The Sopranos.' There's one central plot line, but then from that spin off all kinds of subplots.
'The Sopranos,' for instance, is arguably the best cable show of all time. They could have made a movie, but that show ended so perfectly, it would almost be a disadvantage to make a movie like that. Then again, if you made a 'Sopranos' movie, people would be lined around the block to go see it.
I wanted to play a good guy after doing this lunatic on The Sopranos for two years. And then they did the sequel to Bad Boys, where I get to play the barking captain again.
They're naughty, all those writers - they mess around with people. I know James Gandolfini got a bit fed up on 'The Sopranos': if he said anything in front of a writer, told them a story from his life, it could make its way into the script.
There's no mistaking the fact that some of the best longform fiction out there now is in American television. 'The Wire' and 'Deadwood' and 'The Sopranos.'
'The Sopranos' only reflected the tenor of how things are done in New Jersey. They didn't invent it. And I say that as a fan of both 'The Sopranos' and New Jersey.
'24' and 20th Century Fox and Sky TV are not responsible for training the U.S. military. It is not our job to do. To me, this is almost as absurd as saying, 'The Sopranos' supports the mafia, and by virtue of that, HBO supports the mafia.'
Personally, I don't think we could do such a show if we didn't get along. The subtext of all this is that we're women in a show so we can't possibly get along. It's not like they write about The Sopranos like that.
I like watching American TV shows like 'The Sopranos,' 'Game of Thrones,' etc. I also like to watch dance reality shows since I love to dance, even though I haven't been trained in dancing.
I personally think 'Power' is much more similar to 'The Sopranos' in that it deals with a character who is leading a double life and wants to become legitimate.
I've never done a big series like 'Game of Thrones' before. All I knew was that it was HBO, and I'd seen what they had done with 'The Sopranos' and 'The Wire.' But when I started reading the script, it was a no-brainer. Yes, yes, yes. Gold. Every time I turned the page.
I can't say I have enough experience with Hollywood to feel that I've encountered racism there. I can tell you that I did about five fruitless years of auditioning for voiceovers where I did variations on tacos and Latin accents, and my first screen role was as a bellhop on 'The Sopranos.'
If you see the Sopranos, you're not going to be speaking in the Shakespearean English.
HBO churn out some unbelievable stuff. They really got me with things like 'Band of Brothers.' But you can't beat 'The Sopranos.'
I can't actually believe how good 'The Sopranos' is. I genuinely am dumbfounded by it. It's like when you realize how good The Beatles are, and you think, 'How did they do that?'
The best of American television is thought-provoking, original, brilliant, exciting - from 'The Sopranos' on, whether it's 'The Wire' or 'Breaking Bad' or 'House of Cards,' they're fantastic pieces of art.
