'The Sopranos' Daughter Commercial Gives Fans an Unexpected Sequel During Super Bowl

By Daniel S. Levine

Jamie Lynn Sigler recreated the famous opening for The Sopranos in Chevrolet's Super Bowl LVI commercial, giving longtime fans a look at what a Sopranos sequel series might look like. The spot showed Sigler, who starred as James Gandolfini's on-screen daughter in the iconic HBO original series, driving from Manhattan to New Jersey in a Silverado EV. The spot was even set to the Alabama 3's "Woke Up This Morning," just like it was for The Sopranos.

Sigler isn't the only member of The Sopranos cast to appear in the spot. Robert Iler, who played Tony Soprano's son and Sigler's on-screen brother, was also in the commercial. The Sopranos creator David Chase and Phil Abraham, who was the director of photography for the original opening, also worked on the commercial. While the original title sequence ended with Tony driving up to his house, Sigler's spot ends with Meadow driving up to a seafood restaurant on the Jersey Shore to meet A.J.

"David [Chase] and the team really felt it was an homage to some unanswered questions to the ending of the series," Chevrolet Marketing VP Steve Majoros told AdWeek, referencing the end of The Sopranos. While the commercial still leaves some of the big questions from the finale unanswered, it has "a very optimistic ending, where it's clear that Meadow and A.J. have moved on and it is a new generation," Majoros said. "It's got a different feel to it. All those things together created a little bit of the magic."

One of the glaring shots that could not be recreated in the spot was a scene with the Sonoco gas station sign. Although one could see this omission as a reference to more gas-less cars being produced by GM, Majoros said it was really because they could not get the rights and clearances for everything. He said the omission "wasn't intentional."

"We know full well that Sopranos fans are going to immediately start producing side-by-sides. We tried to be as true to the pacing, to the music, to the photography style, even the kinds of cameras it was shot on," Majoros told AdWeek. "Hopefully the Sopranos fans appreciate that-and then if you are not a Sopranos fan, hopefully, you take away here is a cool new truck with a little bit of attitude."

Sigler also told PEOPLE that she felt the late Gandolfini's presence while shooting the spot. "It was so exciting," Sigler told the magazine. "Robert and I are still best friends. We're so close... What we experienced together was very unique. The Sopranos was a once-in-a-lifetime thing in many ways. It was 10 years of our lives and we were kids and we grew up on that show, and so this just takes you right back. We couldn't have asked for a cooler experience."

Trending Now: