Jamie-Lynn Sigler revealed that James Gandolfini was a no-show at her first wedding without any warning.
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"The Jim I knew wouldn’t have just skipped my wedding without a word or an excuse. Part of me wonders if maybe he didn’t want it for me," Sigler writes.
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And So It Is...A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope is available for purchase wherever books are sold.
Jamie-Lynn Sigleris looking back at her relationship withSopranoscostarJames Gandolfini.
In a new memoir,And So It Is...A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope, the actress reflects on her relationship with the late actor. Gandolfini and Sigler starred as the father-daughter duo Tony and Meadow Soprano on the HBO series.
Sigler, who got married to her then-manager Abraxas "AJ" Discala in 2003 when she was 22 and he was 32, wrote that Gandolfini didn't show up to her wedding.
“Jim didn’t show up. No indication, no warning. I can’t say for certain why. He’s not here, so I can’t ask him," Sigler writes of the actor,who died in 2013. "But Jim had always shown up for me." Sigler noted that Gandolfini and his son,Michael Gandolfini, supported her as Belle inBeauty and the Beaston Broadway, attending a show.
"The Jim I knew wouldn’t have just skipped my wedding without a word or an excuse. Part of me wonders if maybe he didn’t want it for me.”
When she returned toThe Sopranosafter her wedding for a table read, Sigler said she "expected some smiles," applause, or congratulations for her major life event. "Instead, the room was completely silent." The actress writes that only Gandolfini ended the awkward situation with an audible "ooof."
"It was clear: none of them were happy about this for me. It would take me two long years to understand why.” Sigler and Discala would split in 2005. She toldUs Weeklyin April that their "relationship was really toxic and complicated."
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"A marriage at 20 is still a marriage," she added. "I needed a lot of proof to leave. When I went through his phone, I knew something shady was going on. All women feel that way. I wanted to share that not to bash him, but for other women. I felt like such a failure all the time, but I understood I was not going to survive much longer if I stayed in that marriage. I think he knew that, too."
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TheSopranosactress would go on to marry former baseball player Cutter Dykstra in 2016. The couple has two sons.
Elsewhere in her memoir, Sigler praised Gandolfini, calling him "the sun around which the rest of us orbited." "He was larger than life. His energy filled the room. Sometimes I think he hated that power. But it was just part of him. He was magnetic— so big, so beautiful. His presence took up space in the most brilliant way. Jim was humble and present. He cared.”
Sigler has been open about her relationship with Gandolfini.In an October 2023 interviewwithMichael Rosenbaumfor hisInside of Youpodcast, she said she wished she could getThe Sopranoscast back together for one more episode.
"I wish we could just do one week of filming right now, because of my awareness of the world and what that [show] was and what we were a part of... I just wish I could experience it, like one episode, give me one episode right now," she said.
As for the type of episode she had in mind, Sigler said a family-heavy episode with "some sort of internal struggle. "I always loved moments when Meadow and Tony got quiet together. And it was — all our scenes when we would get quiet together the dialogue would actually be really limited. It would just be these heavy, pregnant pauses."
She then praised Gandolfini for wanting to bring the best out of her while working on the show. "Jim was the type of scene partner where it felt like he was there and his only intention was to make me as good as I could be," Sigler recalled.
"And it had nothing to do with him. Every time I worked with him, I felt like his sole purpose was... 'I'm going to help you give your best f---ing take, Jamie.'"
And So It Is...A Memoir of Acceptance and Hopeis available for purchase wherever books are sold.
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