‘Blue Bloods’: Steve Schirripa Reveals Why He Avoids Mob Roles After ‘The Sopranos’ (Exclusive)

Blue Bloods star Steve Schirripa could have stuck with mobster roles after gaining fame as Bobby Baccalieri on The Sopranos, but he didn’t. Since The Sopranos ended, his biggest roles have been the suburban dad Leo on The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Det. Anthony Abetemarco on Blue Bloods. In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Schirripa shared why he has avoided playing mobsters since The Sopranos and why he has continued his close relationship with Michael Imperioli.

Schirripa appeared in several shows and movies before joining The Sopranos in 2000. He even had a full-time job during the show’s first season. “I knew that they want to put you in a box,” Schirripa said. “You’re this guy and that you’re always going to be that guy. Look, I’m a big guy, I have a gravelly voice, and I have a thick Brooklyn accent. I wasn’t going to play an English professor. I knew that.”

The actor knew that he would never be able to “disappear” into a role like Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, or even Tom Hanks. So after The Sopranos ended, Schirripa kept getting offers for “mobby crap.” He made a “conscious effort” to turn these jobs down. “Most of it is garbage. Just movies that you’re never going to see, low-budget movies, the same old dialogue. ‘I’ll break your head’… ‘You break my head, I’ll break your head,’” Schirripa told us. “It doesn’t interest me as an actor at all unless there was something spectacular. The Sopranos was brilliant.”

So instead of finding another role like Bobby, he played Kenny Baumann’s on-screen dad in The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Schirripa credited that part with helping him get Blue Bloods. It was part of his effort to be typecast as a “blue-collar guy” character instead of a mobster. Those roles show that blue-collar guys can have any job.

“Blue-collar guys are doctors, and chefs, and lawyers,” Schirripa said. “So a conscious effort to turn down that kind of [mobster roles]. And I’m very, very happy playing a detective, and they write some great stuff for me on Blue Bloods. They’re terrific writers, and very, very happy. Yeah.”

Although Schirripa isn’t interested in playing mobsters, he has no problem looking back on The Sopranos. He co-hosted the podcast Talking Sopranos with Imperioli, then co-wrote the best-selling book Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of The Sopranos. Oddly enough, Imperioli appeared in Blue Bloods, but he never shared scenes with Schirripa. In a recent New York Times profile, Imperioli said The Sopranos creator David Chase was writing something new for both actors.

“Anything David and Michael do, I want to be a part of… and that’s all I’ve heard,” Schirripa said of the project Imperoli mentioned. “That’s the last I’ve heard. So hopefully at some point. I believe they’re both working on it, they’re writing it together, and let’s see what happens.”

Aside from Imperioli and Schirripa, Blue Bloods has featured many Sopranos stars. The show was even created by two Sopranos veterans, Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, although they left before Schirripa joined. “I  would’ve liked to work with Michael [on Blue Bloods], or at least, I thought a funny thing might have been just cross each other in the hallway and kind of talk each other. I thought that might be funny,” Schirripa said. “Just kind of a, ‘Yeah, how you doing’ thing and keep going.” Blue Bloods airs on CBS Fridays at 10 p.m. ET, while Imperioli stars in the upcoming second season of HBO’s The White Lotus.