Jamie-Lynn Sigler Shares Fond Memories of James Gandolfini
"He was just your leader and your protector," she said.
— -- It's been more than two years since the acting world lost the great James Gandolfini, but his "Sopranos" co-star Jamie-Lynn Sigler still recalls all the amazing lessons he taught her while they worked together for more than eight years.
“He just taught me how to improv a little bit, and he taught me to trust my instincts,” Sigler told HuffPost Live earlier this week.
She continued, “He taught me how to ask for another take if I needed another one. He really taught me how to have my confidence on set and that my opinion mattered, as well, and it just wasn’t always about getting directed. That I could be part of this collaboration.”
She remembered her first big episode and how the veteran actor sat her in his chair to celebrate her moment. In fact, Sigler, 34, said of all the actors she worked with on the show, it was Gandolfini that influenced her the most.
"By watching him and witnessing him for the 10 years that I got, he's just so tremendous," she added. "The one feeling that I can always remember about James is he could walk in a room and if I didn’t even see him, I knew he was there. And you just felt like everything's going to be okay...he was just your leader and your protector.”
Gandolfini died suddenly in June 2013 of a heart attack at the age of 51 while he was on vacation in Rome.
Sigler also spoke about her past eating disorder.
"It was my source of control at the time," she explained, adding that she overcame the disorder "over time," but it was the people behind the show "Sopranos" that were the catalyst for helping her.
"They had asked me to put on weight," she said. "They were concerned...for my health, and they didn't feel like I was the picture of a girl who lived in an Italian household...so they were big catalysts in me taking a step back and realizing the issue."
The actress is starring in the new Hallmark movie, "The Christmas Note."