Michael Imperioli

Not to toot our own horn, but when 'The Sopranos' was on, it was as good as any movie that was coming out in the theater. I think that goes for a lot of shows today.

There's an intelligence that goes with being a good cop. Intuitiveness - they have to be actors; they have to have deductive reasoning, knowledge about a great deal of subjects.

My goal as an actor was just to be somebody very human. I'm not really interested in playing a character who is particularly cool and everything he does looks great and turns out great.

I don't know if I would have had the same career had I not done 'GoodFellas.' Probably not. Would I have been cast on 'The Sopranos?' Who knows if there would have been a 'Sopranos?'

One of my early money mistakes was getting fired from the first acting job I ever had. I was cast in a play as the lead, and I got fired three nights after the open.

Back 20 years ago, there was a division between movie actors and TV actors. That's kind of gone away. People who have had a lot of success in movies in the past now want to be on TV. There used to be much more of a quality division between TV and movies, and that's kind of not the case anymore.

In this world, there really is a law of cause and effect: You reap what you sow. Then energy you put out really does come back to you.

I have a background writing screenplays and teleplays. I've tried to write prose and fiction but never really completed anything I thought worthy of publication or worthy of anyone else to even look at.

I think people always thought I was more of a Guido than I am.

Being on a TV show is a really good gig for an actor.

I've played some gangster roles, but that's obviously not me. When you're an Italian-American New York actor, it's just an easy way to get cast.

I played guitar in a band from when I was about 20 for three years. Then I sang a little. Then I started getting really busy as an actor and forgot about it.