Every Goodfellas Actor Who Appeared In The Sopranos

Whether it was coincidence, homage, or the simple fact that some talents fit mob movies especially well, there were a number ofGoodfellas actors in The Sopranos. Released in 1990, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas was based on the 1985 non-fiction book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi. It recounts the life and crimes of Henry Hill who, in his own words, always wanted to be a gangster. Though Mean Streets dealt with young criminals in New York City, Goodfellas was Scorsese’s first full-blown mob movie and still remains one of the greatest entries in the genre.

Just as Goodfellas stands out as a mafia movie, HBO’s The Sopranos was a hugely acclaimed and influential television series that tackles organized crime. Starring James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, David Chase’s The Sopranos ran for six seasons, offering a contemporary take on Italian-American gangster life in New York City. Both projects are very distinct mob stories that accomplish their own things, but there are definite similarities, including several actors who appear in both Goodfellas and The Sopranos.

29 Lorraine Bracco

Sopranos Character: Jennifer Melfi

Lorraine Bracco is the most obvious and prominent of the Sopranos actors who were also in Goodfellas. In 1990, the actress made her name as Goodfellas‘ Karen Hill opposite Ray Liotta. An ordinary girl lured by the cash and glamour that came with dating a gangster, Karen would crash and burn as collateral damage from her husband’s illicit activities. She earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Scorsese’s movie at the 63rd annual Academy Awards.

Though Bracco didn’t want to play a mafia wife again, she joined The Sopranos as Jennifer Melfi, Tony’s therapist with whom she shares a complex attachment throughout the HBO series. Dr. Melfi ultimately manages to avoid the tragic pitfalls Bracco’s Goodfellas character falls into, and she is able to cleanly break away from Tony Soprano without losing her life. She picked up four Primetime Emmy and three Golden Globe nominations for her role in The Sopranos​​​​​​.

28 Michael Imperioli

Sopranos Character: Christopher Moltisanti

Unlike Bracco, Michael Imperioli is far more famous for his role in The Sopranos than he is for Goodfellas. As Christopher Moltisanti, Imperioli played Tony Soprano’s protégé nephew and the son of a gangster Tony respected deeply. Renowned for his love of tracksuits, Christopher battled several addictions on his way to the top before his inability to get himself straight led to Tony killing Christopher in The Sopranos‘ final season. Imperioli won a Primetime Emmy Award for his performance in The Sopranos season 5.

Michael Imperioli had a brief but brilliant Goodfellas role as Spider — the mafia upstart shot in the foot by Joe Pesci and then killed following an ill-advised “go f**k yourself.” Imperoioli has enjoyed a nice career since his appearance in these two mafia productions, including television roles in The White Lotus, Blue Bloods, Lucifer, and Californication. He also voiced a gangster shark in Shark Tale and returned to The Sopranos for a voice role in The Many Saints of Newark.

27 Frank Vincent

Sopranos Character: Phil Leontardo

When it comes to Sopranos actors in Goodfellas, Frank Vincent enjoyed a memorable supporting role in Goodfellas as Billy Batts, the “made man” who riles up Tommy and gets himself killed as payback. Along with being one of the most brutal parts in Scorsese’s movie, Batts’ death was significant for being the reason Tommy gets whacked in Goodfellas, making him an integral part of the story.

Frank Vincent’s character in The Sopranos, Phil Leotardo, enjoys an even loftier status. Leotardo leads the Lupertazzi crime family and experiences a fractious relationship with Tony and the DiMeo mob. The eventual demise of Leotardo is an homage to Billy Batts’ death in Goodfellas. He was gunned down, and his head was crushed under a car tire after this happened. Vincent died in 2017 following a heart attack at the age of 80.

26 Tony Darrow

Sopranos Character: Larry Barese

Tony Darrow’s Sonny Bunz is an associate of Paulie’s mob in Goodfellas and proud owner of the Bamboo Lounge, which Henry and the others use at their convenience. Sonny’s Lucchese family dealings predictably end with him losing the bar altogether after the required protection money doesn’t get paid. This was his break-out role because Darrow had only appeared in one movie before this called Street Trash, where he also played a mobster and got Martin Scorsese’s attention.

In The Sopranos, Darrow regularly appeared as DiMeo family capo Larry Barese, who remained loyal to Tony throughout his time on screen. In a curious twist of fate, Tony Darrow later confessed to a genuine affiliation with the real Gambino family. He actually went to trial in 2011 for crimes committed in 2004 alongside the Gambino crime family soldier Joseph “Joey Boy” Orlando and associate Giovanni “Johnny” Monteleone. He was sentenced to six months of house arrest (via New York Daily News).

25 Chuck Low

Sopranos Character: Shlomo Teittleman

One of the conspirators in Goodfellas‘ Lufthansa heist, Morrie Kessler owns a wig store and frequents with the local Lucchese mobsters. He is depicted as an obnoxious man who doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut for his own good, which leads to Tommy stabbing him in the back of the head with an icepick. Low had previously appeared in a Martin Scorsese movie, as his first movie role was in The King of Comedy in 1982.

Chuck Low’s character in The Sopranos, Shlomo Teittleman, doesn’t fare much better, cutting a deal with Tony in season 3’s “Denial, Anger, Acceptance” for a share of a motel business. This time it’s Low’s character who reneges on the arrangement, once again playing a man who has the arrogance to think he can defy the mob. Low didn’t have a long career as an actor, though, with only eight credited movie roles, his last coming in 2003. The actor died in 2017 at 89.

24 Tony Sirico

Sopranos: Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri

Similar to Michael Imperioli, Tony Sirico worked his way up from a minor part in Goodfellas to a main credit in The Sopranos. In the former, he played a gangster by the name of Tony Stacks, who can be seen among Paulie’s crew near the start of the movie. This was before being cast as a Paulie of his own — Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri in The Sopranos.

One of Tony’s most loyal, albeit most violent, followers, Paulie Walnuts got his nickname from a botched truck heist, but he proved more competent than that incident suggested, serving as a capo in the Soprano mob before his promotion to underboss. He is one of the few members of Tony’s crew to survive to the end, taking over the old Aprile crew at Tony’s insistence. This also wasn’t Sinico’s first gangster movie role, as he appeared as an uncredited extra in The Godfather Part II.

23 Frank Pellegrino

Sopranos Character: Frank Cubitoso

One of the few to switch sides when it comes to Goodfellas actors on The Sopranos, Frank Pellegrino played a mobster in Goodfellas and an FBI chief in The Sopranos. Across the show’s first five seasons, Pellegrino’s Frank Cubitoso does his best to get Tony Soprano and his family behind bars, going to criminal lengths to make that happen but always falling short.

The same actor was Johnny Dio in Goodfellas —a Lucchese criminal who joins Henry and Jimmy in jail and “does the meat.” Pellegrino’s acting career lasted for 25 years, but he doesn’t have a great deal of credits to his name. When it comes to mafia roles, he did star in the TV movie Gotti as Carmine “Baby Carmine” Russo and in the movie Knockaround Guys as Joey Hook. Pellegrino died in 2017 at the age of 72.

22 Vincent Pastore

Sopranos Role: Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero

Salvatore Bonpensiero was a main Sopranos character throughout the first two seasons and another one of the main soldiers in Tony’s crew. Getting his nickname from an uncanny knack for burglary, Sal was a member of the DiMeo crime family who turned into an FBI informant on The Sopranos after finding himself in financial difficulty. Predictably, Tony found out and was forced to whack his good friend.

Pastore had much less to work with in Goodfellas, where he’s seen helping Henry move a rack of fur coats at the Bamboo Lounge, as he had only been acting for two years when he was cast in Goodfellas. The actor also started a podcast in 2020 with comedian Goumba Johnny called Fuhgeddaboudit, which itself is mafia terminology. He also recently appeared in the TV show Hawaii Five-O as Uncle Vito and the 2023 movie Spinning Gold as Big Joey.

21 Suzanne Shepherd

Sopranos Character: Mary DeAngelis

Lorraine Bracco might’ve been hesitant to revisit Goodfellas territory in The Sopranos, but there was no such concern for Suzanne Shepherd as one of the Sopranos actors in Goodfellas, who first portrayed the mother of Karen Hill, and then the mother of Carmela Soprano in The Sopranos. On both occasions, she was the mother-in-law of the story’s main gangster.

Shepherd started her movie and television career late in life.

Just as Karen’s mom was less than delighted about her daughter marrying into the local mafia, Mary DeAngelis had similar reservations about Carmela’s relationship with Tony Soprano. Shepherd started her movie and television career late in life, getting her first role in 1988 at the age of 54. However, she had been working in entertainment since the 1960s as a founding member of the Compass Players Improvisational Theatre with her husband David Shepherd, Alan Alda, and Alan Arkin. She died in 2023 at the age of 89.

20 Marianne Leone Cooper

Sopranos Character: Joanne Moltisanti

Goodfellas was one of Cooper’s earliest roles, as she only started acting in 1985 with a guest role on a TV show and then worked in re-enactments in the Errol Morris documentary masterpiece, The Thin Blue Line. However, after The Sopranos, she only has a handful of roles to her name, including the movies The Three Stooges (as Sister Ricarda), Joy (as Sharon), and the 2022 movie With/In. She is also married to actor Chris Cooper (Adaptation).

19 John Ciarcia

Sopranos Character: Albie Cianfalone

It’s not unusual for actors to cross paths time and time again in the gangster genre, but it’s far less common for one actor to occupy the same position on both occasions. When it comes to actors on Goodfellas and The Sopranos, John Ciarcia is one such man. First seen alongside Frank Vincent’s Billy Batts in Goodfellas, Ciarcia then followed Vincent to The Sopranos, where he served as a capo to the latter’s own Phil Leotardo.

Goodfellas was the second role of Ciarcia’s career after appearing in the Abel Ferrara movie China Girl in 1987. However, Goodfellas really led to more mafia roles. He followed up the Scorsese movie with Hoffa in 1992, Me and the Mob in 1994, and A Brooklyn State of Mind in 1998. After The Sopranos, Ciarcia appeared in a few more movies, including Spy, before he passed away in 2015 at the age of 75.

18 Anthony Caso

Sopranos Character: Martin Scorsese

In an unlikely meta twist, Anthony Caso worked both for Martin Scorsese and later played the legendary director. In Goodfellas, the actor is a simple truck hijacker grifting alongside Jimmy, but in the very first season of The Sopranos, Caso plays a fictionalized Martin Scorsese entering a nightclub complete with a full celebrity entrance. The small appearance also includes a hilarious joke where Christopher yells at the filmmaker about his love of the underappreciated Kundun​​​​​.

Caso is someone who had been acting for a long time when he appeared in Goodfellas. His first appearance was in the TV soap opera Search for Tomorrow in 1970. Most of his work was on TV, with roles in The Equalizer and The Street before he appeared in Goodfellas. He didn’t do much noteworthy between Goodfellas and The Sopranos, but then after the TV show, he took on small TV roles and minor appearances in movies, with his most recent in 2021 with Making the Day.

17 Paul Herman

Sopranos Character: Beansie Gaeta

A regular collaborator of Martin Scorsese’s, Paul Herman is the “Pittsburgh Connection” in Goodfellas, where Henry and Karen go for their cocaine. On top of this small role in Goodfellas, Herman has also appeared in Scorsese movies The Color of Money (a player in a casino bar), The Last Temptation of Christ (as the apostle Philip), Casino (as a gambler), and The Irishman (Whispers DiTullio).

Herman also appeared in a handful of The Sopranos episodes as Peter “Beansie” Gaeta, a mobster turned restaurant owner who gets severely beaten by Richie Aprile, his former mafia associate. Since his role in The Sopranos, Herman has picked up some bigger roles, including parts in movies like Analyze That, We Own the Night, Crazy Heart, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, and Joy. The Irishman was his last movie before his death in 2022 at 76.

16 Tony Lip

Sopranos Character: Carmine Lupertazzi

Carmine Lupertazzi led the crime family of the same name from season 3 to season 5 of The Sopranos. Despite their obvious differences in approach (mostly due to both men hailing from different generations), Carmine and Tony stayed respectful towards each other for the most part. Before Carmine, Tony Lip played real-life gangster Frank “Frankie the Wop” Manzo in Goodfellas, who receives a quick introduction in the iconic scene of Henry’s Bamboo Lounge voice-over.

Goodfellas wasn’t Lip’s first mafia movie role, and it wasn’t even the biggest mafia movie he ever appeared in. The very first role of his career came after he met Francis Ford Coppola and picked up a small role in the first Godfather movie. He also appeared in Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull and Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon. After his death in 2013, the Best-Picture winning movie Green Book was made about Lip, as he was the bouncer who drove and protected Don Shirley in the Jim Crow South. Viggo Mortensen played Lip.

15 Nicole Burdette

Sopranos Character: Barbara Giglione

Mirroring Marianne Leone Cooper somewhat, Nicole Burdette played the unnamed girlfriend of Frankie Carbone in Goodfellas but enjoyed a larger presence in The Sopranos. She played Tony’s youngest sibling, Barbara, who lived a legitimate life with her husband and children away from the violence other members of her family took part in. Despite taking diverse paths, she remained part of Tony’s life.

Before getting her role in Goodfellas, Burdette was a stage actor and co-founded the theater company Naked Angels. Her first movie role was in Angel Heart with Robert De Niro, and after Goodfellas, she starred in A River Runs Through It as Mabel, Paul Maclean (Brad Pitt)’s girlfriend. Her movie and TV career has been limited since The Sopranos, but she teaches screenwriting and playwriting at The New School of Drama.

14 Nancy Cassaro

Sopranos Character: Joanne Moltisanti

Whether a sign of the era or of the subject matter, the wives of Goodfellas don’t see much screen time, and so it proves with Nancy Cassaro, who was cast as the spouse of Joe Buddah in Martin Scorsese’s classic. Cassaro would become the first actress to play Joanne Moltisanti, Christopher’s mother, in The Sopranos, appearing in a single episode before Marianne Leone Cooper took over.

Goodfellas was actually Casasro’s first role and helped her break into the movie industry. She went on to pick up a role in the TV show Family Album, but after that, she just made single appearances in several TV shows before playing recurring character Shelly Tucci in the 1998 show Getting Personal. After The Sopranos, she got some roles in big-name shows like Bull, The King of Queens, Providence, The West Wing, and Without a Trace. She hasn’t appeared in anything since she had a role in Dirt in 2008.

13 Frank Albanese

Sopranos Character: Pat Blundetto

Frank Albanese will be most familiar for his turn as The Sopranos‘ Pat Blundetto, known to Tony as “Uncle Pat.” The character’s niece is married to Dickie Moltisanti in The Sopranos prequel, too. Retired as a gangster when the story begins, Pat still crops up in a handful of episodes, usually to lend Tony the benefit of his wisdom and experience. In Goodfellas, Albanese can be found playing a mob-friendly legal representative when a younger Henry Hill is arrested for the very first time.

His movie career doesn’t have much in it, although he did appear in a small role in The Godfather: Part III in 1990 and Dead Presidents in 1995. However, other than his role in The Sopranos, his career winded to a close after that with small roles in minor movies and a couple of shorts in 2012 and 2013. Albanese passed away in 2015 at the age of 84.

12 Tobin Bell

Sopranos Character: Major Zwingli

The man better known as Jigsaw in the Saw franchise has a single credit in The Sopranos to his name, featuring as Major Zwingli in season 3’s finale, “Army of One.” Zwingli unsuccessfully attempts to recruit Tony and Carmela’s son into military school. Bell makes an even less prominent appearance in Goodfellas in a small role as a parole officer.

Before Goodfellas, Bell had a burgeoning career, with uncredited roles in some big movies like Manhattan, Sophie’s Choice, The Verdict, and Tootsie. After Goodfellas, he got some bigger roles in The Firm, In the Line of Fire, Malice, The Quick and the Dead. However, it was after The Sopranos that Bell became a star. He was John Kramer in the Saw franchise and is the key to that horror franchise’s success. He also took on the role of Doctor Alchemy/Savitar in The Flash​​​​​​.

11 Susan Varon

Sopranos Character: Joan Gillespie

Susan Varon made her screen debut as one of the few non-gangsters in Goodfellas, playing a background character simply credited as “Susan.” Over a decade later, she was a real estate agent in The Sopranos, showing Christopher and Kelli around a new house. In between these two small roles in the mafia productions, she appeared in the movie Clifford and the TV shows Coach and Married with Children.

Outside of her mafia entertainment exploits, Varon will be more familiar to audiences from another New York-based TV series, Daredevil, in which she appeared in nine episodes as Josie. She was the owner of Josie’s Bar, which Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson would frequent. She also frequently appeared in one-shot episodes of TV shows like Bull, Manifest, and Elementary, and she had a three-episode run on Boardwalk Empire as Madam Regina.

10 Vito Antuofermo

Sopranos Character: Bobby Zanone

Transitioning from boxing to acting, Goodfellas marked Vito Antuofermo’s introduction to Hollywood, and, true to life, he played a prizefighter. Antuofermo continued to frequent the gangster genre’s casting rooms and later turned up on The Sopranos as Bobby Zanone. The owner of a garbage company, Bobby had dealings with Richie Aprile, who distributed drugs using garbage truck routes as cover.

The character is also remembered for having trash dumped on an angry customer’s driveway. Before his acting career, he was a very successful boxer and was the Undisputed World Middleweight Champion with a record of 50 wins (21 by knockout), seven losses, and two draws. When he entered acting, he got two mafia roles in the same year, as he also appeared in The Godfather Part III as Anthony “the Ant” Squigliaro, along with Goodfellas. He hasn’t acted since The Sopranos.