In his highly sympathetic career as an actor, James Gandolfini made a name for himself playing brutal men hiding complex emotionality beneath their cool exterior. When he passed away suddenly in 2013, he left us with a filmography filled with standout character roles and empathetic roles in everything from blockbusters like “Crimson Tide” to comedies like “Enough.”
But even with these stellar parts, we still wish we’d seen more of Gandolfini, letting fans look back at the roles he almost played and imagine him. One of those parts would have been his most chilling and horrific villains, which is really saying something considering the dastardly work he put in on “The Sopranos,” despite the fact that he didn’t even want to audition.
Because before he was the Italian Mafia boss, Gandolfini almost starred in Frank Darabont’s adaptation of “The Shawshank Redemption,” but he had to suddenly leave the production at the last moment because of another role.
An ‘unknown’ Gandolfini almost touched the villainous prisoner Swamp Diamonds
When Tim Robbins’ Andy Dufresne arrives at Shawshank State Penitentiary, he quickly makes a friend in Morgan Freeman’s Ellis “Red” Redding. Their bond forms the heart of the film, but its warmth contrasts sharply with the terror inflicted on him by Bogs Diamond, leader of the gang “The Sisters.” The role is perfectly played by “Aliens” actor Mark Rolston, but in an interview with USA Today, writer-director Frank Darabont revealed that they had originally cast James Gandolfini in the role.
At the time, he was still an “unknown guy” working for Off-Broadway Productions, but his audition struck a chord with Darabond and his team, and they offered him the job immediately. But before they could play the role, Gandolfini dropped out of “The Shawshank Redemption” because he had been cast in Tony Scott’s 1993 classic “True Romance” (seen above). Darabont says they had “no hard feelings” toward Gandolfini for dropping out, because they knew the role “would better serve his career.”
After Gandolfini left the role, Darabont held another round of auditions, which is when Mark Rolston walked through the doors, and Darabont couldn’t have been more pleased. “I’m the biggest ‘Aliens’ fan there is. He had me in ‘Hello,'” says Darabont. “I loved working with this guy. He brought something indelible.”
In the end, Darabont was right, with Gandolfini’s role in “True Romance” paving the way for him to take on Tony Soprano, one of the defining roles in TV history. Let’s just imagine how menacing he would have been inside the cold cells of Shawshank State Penitentiary.
