The Many Saints of Newark star Michael Gandolfini, the son of The Sopranos actor James Gandolfini, nabbed another mob-related project. Gandolfini will star in The Offer, the upcoming Paramount+ limited series about the making of The Godfather. Hunters actor Zack Schor also nabbed a role in the project on Thursday. The Offer also stars Miles Teller, Colin Hanks, Juno Temple, and Dan Fogler.
Gandolfini was cast as Andy Calhoun, a surprisingly savvy businessman trying to buy Paramount Pictures, reports Variety. Schor will play Fred Gallo, Francis Ford Coppola’s assistant director on The Godfather. Teller plays producer Albert S. Ruddy, who won the 1972 Best Picture Oscar for the original film. Matthew Goode stars as then-Paramount chief Robert Evans, while Hanks plays Barry Lapidus and Temple plays Bettye McCartt. Fogler stars as Coppola and Giovanni Ribisi stars as Joe Colombo, a real-life mobster whom Ruddy met with during production. Burn Gorman plays Charles Bludhorn, an executive at Gulf+Western, the conglomerate that owned Paramount during the 1970s.
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The Offer was created by Michael Tolkin and will be directed by Decter Fletcher (Rocketman). Nikki Toscano is the showrunner and executive producer. Teller also came on as an executive producer after he was hired to replace Armie Hammer. Paramount Television Studios is producing the project, but no release date has been announced.
Gandolfini played the younger version of his father’s iconic character Tony Soprano in The Many Saints of Newark, the prequel film to The Sopranos. Gandolfini also starred in The Deuce, Ocean’s Eight, and Cherry. Earlier this month, Gandolfini was cast in Cat Person, a psychological thriller co-starring Hope Davis, Isabella Rossellini, and Nicholas Braun. The film is based on the 2017 New Yorker short story by Kristen Roupenian, cantering on the relationship of a young sophomore college student and an older man she meets at the movie theater where she works. Susanna Fogel is directing.
In an interview with Uproxx last month, Gandolfini said he would be interested in playing Tony Soprano again, but he also wants to define himself as an actor with other roles on his resume. “This is what I want to do for my entire life, and I want to grow. So right now, as a 22-year-old, my main goal is to learn as much as possible. So with the idea that I can work with Jon Bernthal and Vera Farmiga and Corey Stoll and Billy Magnussen — and whoever comes back and whoever new actors are brought in, and David — I’m going to learn from that experience no matter what. So in some ways, that’s a win. But yeah… I do want to go on and do other things.”
