Danielle Arcuri spent her 20s watching “The Sopranos,” the same way many fans did when the hit show first aired — gathering with friends, following each episode as they unfolded week by week from January 1999 to June 2007.
“Me and my friends used to hang out and get together and watch it,” Arcuri, of Bellmore, said last week. “When I heard about this, I knew I had to come. It’s right here.”
The habit turned into something longer-lasting. Now in her 40s, Arcuri said she still returns to the show — and was already thinking about starting another rewatch when she saw that cast members would be appearing locally.
Arcuri joined a packed crowd at Bellmore Movies & The Showplace on April 18 for “A Night with the Cast of The Sopranos,” a live event featuring actors Robert Funaro,(Eugene) Jason Cerbone (Jackie Aprile Jr.) and Dan Grimaldi, (Patsy Parisi and his twin brother, (Philly), along with host Matt Servitto (Agent Dwight Harris) and special guest John Fiore (Gigi Cestone). The evening offered a mix of humor, reflection and behind-the-scenes insight into one of television’s most influential series.
Though closely associated with New Jersey, The Sopranos maintained ties to Long Island. While primarily filmed in New Jersey and at Silvercup Studios, in Long Island City, select scenes were shot in places like Long Beach, Atlantic Beach and Glen Head. Those connections resonate locally, particularly since 26 percent of Long Island residents identify as Italian-American.
For Anne Stampfel, co-owner of the theater, events like this reflect both that cultural connection and a broader shift in how the venue operates.
“This is the second time we’ve had a ‘Sopranos’ cast,” Stampfel said, noting that the lineup changes with each appearance.
The theater’s programming has expanded in recent years, especially after the pandemic disrupted traditional moviegoing. Stampfel said the business has had to evolve to remain viable.
“Covid changed everything,” she said. “The movie business as a whole took a real hit. It’s still recovering.”
Long before Bellmore Movies was solely a movie theater, the venue regularly hosted live performances alongside films. “When you booked a movie, you also booked an act,” Stampfel said.
The “Sopranos” panel was one of several such bookings brought in through a collaboration between JD Sarantakos, founder of JD’s Productions. and the Andrew Frank Group, which manages cast members and organizes touring events.
“It’s a unique, special event that nobody’s going to forget — it’s that type of show,” Sarantakos previously told the Herald. “We’re doing it on Long Island because I grew up on Long Island, Andrew grew up on Long Island, and it’s just a great venue: the oldest movie theater on Long Island. To bring it there, to have the show rebound and to do it again is an honor.”
On stage, the conversation touched on experiences of working on the series, with actors reflecting how little they often knew about their characters’ futures.
Fiore described coming to the show with minimal context.
“Suddenly I’m in the back room with the guys — I didn’t even know where my character was going,” he said.
Grimaldi said that simply landing a role on the show was significant at the time.
“To play Philly was a dream,” he said. “Every actor in America wanted to be on ‘The Sopranos.’”
Funaro focused on the environment behind the scenes, pointing to the tone set by the series’ star, James Gandolfini. “It was like a family, and we all ate together,” Funaro recalled.
That sense of closeness made some of the show’s more abrupt plot turns even more difficult for actors, particularly when they learned a character was being written out.
Servitto recalled the atmosphere during table reads when those moments were revealed. “There were practically audible gasps,” he said.
Cerbone said he found out about the fate of his character, Jackie Aprile Jr. while in the middle of filming other scenes for the show. “I had to then go shoot after I just heard that I was going to be killed,” Cerbone recounted.
The discussion also revisited one of the show’s most talked-about storylines — Adriana La Cerva’s death — which Servitto said was handled differently in early drafts of the script.
For Arcuri, the realism of the show still stands out to her, particularly in the way it reflected everyday interactions she had seen growing up around New York and Long Island.
“It reminds me of where my parents grew up,” she said, reflecting on Italian family values and remembering the restaurants her family often visited. “You still see people like that.”
