James Gandolfini on screen again in ‘Enough Said’
TORONTO — After Nicole Holofcener cast James Gandolfini in her divorcee romantic comedy “Enough Said,” the “Sopranos” actor kept suggesting she rethink her decision.
Alec Baldwin, he insisted, would be far better suited.
“He would list some actors he thought could do a much better job,” Hol of center said in a recent interview. “I felt confident he could do this part. More than he did. He was quite certain that he couldn’t pull it off.”
What began as a stretch outside Gandolfini’s comfort zone is now debuting, tragically, as one of Gandolfini’s final performances. “Enough Said,” which premieres today at the Toronto International Film Festival ahead of Fox Searchlight’s Sept. 18 release, was filmed about a year before the actor died of a heart attack in June. (His final film, the Brooklyn crime movie “Animal Rescue,” is expected to be released next year.)
Holofcener’s “Enough Said” is about a middle- aged masseuse (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) who begins dating a fellow divorcee ( Gandolfini) also with a daughter going off to college.
“I didn’t feel like I was taking a risk,” says Holofcener. “A lot of people said, ‘ Oh, no one’s ever seen him in a role like this.’ But if you watch ‘The Sopranos,’ he has an enormous range. That character wasn’t just a bully.”
Premiering the film in Toronto without Gandolfini, Holofcener says, is “bittersweet.”