David Chase recalls working with Peter Bogdanovich on Northern Exposure and The Sopranos

Variety

The Sopranos creator tells Variety he had a fun time working with the late director, who died Thursday at age 82. Chase was a showrunner on Northern Exposure when he asked Bogdanovich to play himself talking about Orson Welles during the fictional Cicely Alaska Film Festival. "He was so great," says Chase. "He was so placid and so real, and he didn’t overdue it, which is something people tend to do when playing themselves." Chase adds: "Then Sopranos came along and Melfi needed a therapist of her own and Peter just popped into my head automatically. He brought that bottle of water, which he always had with him when shooting or not shooting. He’d say something and then unscrew the top and take a gentlemanly sip and then go on with what he was going to say. That was Elliot Kupferberg, M.D. It also worked because he and Lorraine Bracco (who played Melfi) are so different. He’s so canny and removed, just sort of sitting there with his hands in his lap, and she was not that kind of psychiatrist. He personified a scientific outlook. He was frequently around the set and we had fun. We went out to dinner a lot, we drank a lot. He told great stories. You could hear them 10 or 12 times and it wouldn’t be enough. And he was a great mimic, so when he was voicing John Wayne or John Ford or Cary Grant, all of whom he knew, you’d get the whole person. It made you feel like you’d really missed out on something. You wished you’d been there. At some point during his work as Kupferberg, he said “How would you feel about me directing an episode?” So he did 'Sentimental Education.' I felt pretty secure. I knew he was a really good director. His directing style was a little bit different from the rest of the people that we had. He and I didn’t see eye to eye on some choices he had made in terms of coverage, but in the end it came out great. It was an important episode for us because it was all about Carmela having an affair." ALSO: Bogdanovich once said that The Sopranos separated itself from other shows because of its willingness to stay on a wide shot, to not cut, and to stay on people listening.