Quarantine is hard on mental health: Benard
‘Talking Sopranos’
NEW YORK, April 22, (AP): Longtime “General Hospital” star Maurice Benard says sheltering in place can take its toll on your mental health. The actor is open about suffering from bipolar disorder and also writes about it in his new best-selling book, “Nothing General About It: How Love (And Lithium) Saved Me On and Off General Hospital.”
The breakout of COVID-19 not only altered plans to promote the book but also kept him home from work. “General Hospital” stopped production March 15. The ABC show recently began airing four new shows a week with flashbacks edited in to pad the episodes; Benard believes the show has enough material to get through mid-May.
“It’s a very hard time and people are thrown from their routines or they’re alone in isolation,” said Benard, 57, in a recent interview from his Los Angeles home. “I’m having anxiety and last week I had it horribly. It’s weird for me. I need to act.”
Benard says even though routines are altered, people shouldn’t pause their commitment to taking care of themselves: “You can’t let that stop you from working out and eating well. You’ve got to stay out of your thoughts because that’s where the demon is.” Benard has won a Daytime Emmy Award for his portrayal of Sonny Corinthos, a mobster who is beloved by his friends and family and feared by his enemies. His illness has been incorporated into his character’s story, which Benard calls “so nice.”
“It tells people, you know, Sonny is bipolar and Sonny can function. If Sonny can do it, then I can do it,” he said.
His book, written with Susan Black, was born out of posting Sunday check-ins on social media about how he was feeling: “You’ve got to talk about it because if you hold it in, you will explode.”
Both in the book and in his interview, Benard credits his wife and manager, Paula, for guiding him through his low points.
Panic
“My wife is the one who, during the panic attacks or the harder times, has that calming voice, who makes everything much easier.”
Benard has been on “General Hospital” for 25 years. This would naturally put him in a leadership position with his co-stars, but he says that wasn’t always the case because he wasn’t always approachable.
“I’ve changed in the last five years. I used to be kind of tough. I think getting older, having a little more wisdom made something change in me,” he said. “Everybody’s noticed. What a great feeling to not feel ugliness inside.”
Chad Duell, who plays his son Michael, said in an email to the AP: “He definitely has helped me grow as an actor, and he always brings out the best of me when I am working with him.”
“I loved working with Mo. He elevated my performance every time,” added Bryan Craig, who played another one of his sons, also via email.
Benard said he relishes working with the younger actors on the show.
“I love taking the young actors under my wing, especially when they’re talented. The young actors are winning Emmys,” he said. “At this point in my life I’m more proud of what they do than what I do.”
The coronavirus pandemic almost upended a new podcast about the hit TV series “The Sopranos” before it even started. But hosts and series actors Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa said fans pleaded with them to find a way to do it.
They did and watchers of the award-winning HBO series will be overjoyed that the two “Sopranos” stars are providing insight into the show while listeners are stuck in their homes.
Imperioli said fans had been watching the show during shelter-in-place orders and were hungry for the podcasts. “So Steve and I had a long talk and we thought about it and we found a way to do it remotely,” Imperioli said.
Even a series regular like Schirripa is also learning things about the series. “Michael tells me things that I’ve never even knew,” he said. “So it’s pretty amazing.”
Discovered
One thing listeners have discovered is that there were three final actors vying for the role for Tony Soprano. One was Bruce Springsteen collaborator Steven Van Zandt.
Obviously, James Gandolfini got the part of Sorprano, but show creator David Chase found a spot for Van Zandt. “They wrote in that character, Silvio, for him. There was no Silvio in the original script,” Imperioli said.
And what about the third actor? “Michael Rispoli was the third finalist and he played Jackie Aprile Sr.,” Imperioli said.
New episodes of “Talking Sopranos” are available every Monday on various podcast apps or at Simplecast.
While many fans regard “The Sopranos” as one of the best shows ever on television, Imperioli, who played Christopher Moltisanti, wasn’t initially sure the mob series would succeed.
He said “it was not easy” to understand what the show was really about from the pilot. He didn’t know if it was a spoof or not. “It was hard to really grasp the tone,” he explains.
While Imperioli was confused at first, it didn’t take long for him to realize that the show that David Chase created was something magical.
“We got these scripts every two weeks, they kept getting more interesting and more strange and more bizarre and more intricate and more unique,” he said.
And along the way the two hosts share love and admiration for the late Gandolfini and how he led the ensemble cast by example.
“Jim was like the captain. He wasn’t the boss. He wasn’t the star. ‘The Sopranos’ was a team both behind the camera and in front of the camera. And I haven’t had that experience again, really,” Imperioli said.
While Gandolfini often becomes a topic of the weekly conversation, an episode focusing solely on his contributions to the series is not out of the question.
“I was thinking about - maybe I was going to bring it up with you, Steve. Maybe there’s room for just an episode to really delve into that,” Imperioli told his colleague.
“That would be great. He was such a good guy. As good an actor, he was, he was a better guy, generous guy,” Schirripa responded.
The 51-year-old Gandolfini died of a heart attack in 2013 while vacationing in Italy.