“Is He Threatening Enough?”

Photo: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty

James Gandolfini was unknown to most TV viewers when he got the role of Tony Soprano. But if you were a connoisseur of character actors in the mid-’90s, he was already on your radar. Gandolfini had made a powerful impression in multiple big-screen supporting roles, including the intimidating Lt. Bobby Dougherty in submarine thriller Crimson Tide; a detective briefly possessed by a demon in Fallen; Geena Davis’s sweet boyfriend in Angie;...