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'Sopranos' star tries to escape contract over £12.4m pay deal for show's creator

Ian Burrell,Media,Culture Correspondent
Saturday 08 March 2003 01:00 GMT
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James Gandolfini, the star of The Sopranos, is suing the makers of the popular drama to escape his obligations to make a new series.

Gandolfini, who plays Tony Soprano, boss of television's best known mobster family, was reportedly outraged after discovering that David Chase, the show's creator, was being paid the equivalent of £12.4m for making a fifth season.

The actor receives about £250,000 per programme for a 13-episode series.Gandolfini's lawyers have filed a writ at the Californian Supreme Court saying that Chase's pay hike was made without his knowledge and amounted to a breach of contract.

The writ claimed that Gandolfini's contract exceeded the seven-year limit for personal services. A spokesman for HBO said last night that the company believed the legal move was a ploy. "This is nothing more than a further renegotiation tactic by an actor with a binding contract," a spokeswoman for HBO said.

Gandolfini is said to be seeking a pay increase to £400,000 per episode. Three years ago, when the show became popular around the world, he renegotiated his pay to £6.2m for two series. The actor is also said to have legal bills of £2m from his recent divorce.

He was relatively unknown before The Sopranos and his earnings are now on a par with those of Martin Sheen, star of the West Wing. But other HBO stars command higher salaries. Kelsey Grammer makes about £1m a show for Frasier, which films a 22-episode series in the same time it takes to make a season of The Sopranos.

Chase has said he does not want to work on the show beyond a fifth series and both Gandolfini and his co-star Edie Falco, who plays Carmela Soprano, have said they do not want to continue without him.

None of the cast gets a share of the show's earnings from sales of DVDs and his fellow actors Steve Van Zandt (Silvio Dante)and Lorraine Bracco (Dr Jennifer Melfi) are also said to be unhappy with their pay.

Filming for the new series is scheduled to begin in just over two weeks. But as Tony might say: "I'm the ************ ****** who calls the shots."

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