NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – As fans of "The Sopranos" marked the iconic show's 25-year anniversary Wednesday, actor Steve Schirripa told 1010 WINS the show changed his life and "will endure forever."
The Emmy-award TV series—which follows New Jersey–based mobster Tony Soprano as he deals with the dramas of being a family man and the head of an organized crime family—premiered on HBO on Jan. 10, 1999.
Schirripa, who played gangster Bobby Baccalieri, told 1010 WINS on Wednesday that "it's hard to believe, to be honest with you, it really is" that it's been a quarter-century since the show debuted.
In the show, Baccalieri started as the gentle giant who took care of Junior Soprano, but his character evolved to become Tony Soprano's right-hand man.
"That's what I like—started out very small and you saw the progression of Bobby Bacala," Schirripa said.
Spoiler alert ahead, readers—Schirripa also talked about how he learned his character was getting whacked. He got the news directly from producer David Chase at his kitchen table, about a month before the scene was shot.
"David Chase came to my apartment," Schirripa recalled. "And he knocked on the door, and I opened it, and he said, 'I guess you know why I'm here.' It was kind of like a real hit, you know?"
Baccalieri was gunned down in a toy train shop, pursuing his beloved hobby. The grisly death scene was shot at TrainLand in Lynbrook, Long Island.
"We actually shot that on Valentine's Day 2007," Schirripa said. "It was snowing really hard."
Schirripa said he was sorry to see Baccalieri go, but he told David Chase, "Thank you for changing my life."
Schirripa was an executive at a hotel in Las Vegas and dabbling in acting in the 1990s when he auditioned for "The Sopranos" while in New York for a wedding.
"I got it and then I moved back to New York. And I had no career, so it was everything for me," he said.
Schirripa said the "writing was everything" to the show's success.
"You weren't allowed to change a line, nothing is ad-libbed," he said. "People think you ad-libbed on the show, 'Oh that sounded like you.' Not at all. What was on the page had to come out of your mouth."
As for the show's enduring popularity, Schirripa said, "It holds up today as if it was written today. If you watch the show now, it's not dated. Besides the cars, and the computers, the phones, it's like it was written yesterday."
"And that’s why this will endure forever," he added. "There's a young generation of kids watching it, that were too young to watch it then."
Now Schirripa is on the other side of the law, playing a detective on the award-winning cop show "Blue Bloods."
He'll be heading to a "big reunion" to mark the anniversary on Wednesday night.
"Big party, undisclosed location, but I'll get to see people I haven't seen in years," he said.