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I was a huge 'Sopranos' fan, obviously.

'The Sopranos' all came down to the writing. I wouldn't have been on for as long as I was if the writing weren't so good.

I can't actually believe how good 'The Sopranos' is. I genuinely am dumbfounded by it. It's like when you realize how good The Beatles are, and you think, 'How did they do that?'

'The Sopranos' only reflected the tenor of how things are done in New Jersey. They didn't invent it. And I say that as a fan of both 'The Sopranos' and New Jersey.

I think that 'The Sopranos' uses music incredibly well.

'The Wire's definitely one of them. 'The Sopranos' is one of my all-time favorites. Those are two big ones for me.

'The Sopranos' gets praised as novelistic, but it follows the most banal of life patterns, showing the sheer tedium of being a mobster. It has dead spots, boring plotlines, weak episodes. Characters develop slowly, or don't. Like viewers, a gangster might get bored, fade out of the action, then come back to find none of his debts forgotten.

HBO churn out some unbelievable stuff. They really got me with things like 'Band of Brothers.' But you can't beat 'The Sopranos.'

I really loved the 'Sopranos' but didn't have HBO. So someone would send me tapes of the show with three or four episodes. I would watch one episode and go: 'Oh my God, I've got to watch one more.' I'd watch the whole tape and champ at the bit for the next one.

They're naughty, all those writers - they mess around with people. I know James Gandolfini got a bit fed up on 'The Sopranos': if he said anything in front of a writer, told them a story from his life, it could make its way into the script.