Steven Van Zandt says he "misses" his late ‘Sopranos’ co-star James Gandolfini "every single day".
The 69-year-old musician-and-actor portrayed Silvio Dante alongside Gandolfini as Mob boss Tony Soprano in the HBO drama about a Mafia family in New Jersey, which is credited for kicking off the box set viewing phenomenon in the 2000s.
Gandolfini died at the age of 51 after suffering a heart attack in a hotel room in Rome in June 2013 and Van Zandt admits there isn’t a day that goes in which he doesn’t think about his friend.
In an interview on UK TV show ‘This Morning’, he said: "I miss Jimmy every single day, he was the greatest acting school you could ever go to, made you a better actor."
Van Zandt hadn’t done any acting when he was offered the role in ‘The Sopranos’ in 1999 by creator David Chase and his background was being the guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.
The rocker has revealed that Gandolfini and Chase were incredibly supportive when started playing Silvio, a part he was apprehensive about accepting.
He recalled: "David Chase called me out of the blue and said, ‘Do you want to be in my new TV show?’ And I said, ‘Not really, I’m not an actor.’ He said, ‘Yes you are you just don’t know it yet.’ So I went down there, I had nothing better to do to be honest, and I went and got the gig.
"I was still an outsider coming in to that world and I said to David, ‘I feel guilty taking another job, they work their whole lives to do this.’ He said, ‘Well I’m gonna write you in a part so you’re not taking anyone else’s job.’ He wrote me that part. Acting is something you never stop learning but, yeah, I did 10 years on ‘The Sopranos’."
Steven Van Zandt misses Sopranos co-star James Gandolfini
