Steven Van Zandt Used His Relationship with Bruce Springsteen to Create His ‘Sopranos’ Character
Steven Van Zandt worked with Bruce Springsteen long before he took a role on The Sopranos. In 1999, when he accepted the role on The Sopranos, he also rejoined the E Street Band. While it may have been a challenge to balance his new acting career with music, it was perfect for Van Zandt. He built his Sopranos character at least partly off his relationship with Springsteen.
Steven Van Zandt based his ‘Sopranos’ character on his real relationship with Bruce Springsteen
After leaving the E Street Band in 1984, Van Zandt officially rejoined in 1999. That same year, he accepted his first-ever acting role as Silvio Dante on The Sopranos. He realized that to accurately portray the character, he had to create a background. This meant pulling from his real-life experiences.
“I decided that I had to create this guy,” he told Rolling Stone. “First of all, I wrote a biography of who the guy was and I made up my own story. He grew up with Tony Soprano, he was his best friend, he’s the only guy who doesn’t want to be the boss, he’s the only guy he trusts. I kind of used my relationship with Bruce, basically.”
Still, he used some non-Springsteen-related ideas to create his character.
“I said, ‘I’ve got to create this guy from the outside in.’ And part of the biography, by the way, was that he kind of romanticized the mob’s history and felt that the best times were over,” he said. “The good times are gone, now everybody’s ratting everybody out and the good old days of the mob are long gone. But he was a traditionalist, so he wanted to have that kind of honor that he felt the old mob guys had, and so he looked like a throwback. I have a Fifties haircut and a Fifties kind of demeanor, because that was his philosophy.”
Steven Van Zandt said his relationship with Bruce Springsteen is very important to him
Van Zandt and Springsteen met as teenagers. While he left the band in the early 1980s, he rejoined and has been a consistent member for over two decades. Many artists have seen their friendships collapse due to the pressure of fame, but Van Zandt said he values his relationship with Springsteen too much to let it fall apart.
“Our friendship is deeper than any of that, and it’s forever,” he said. “I decided that very early on. Remember, he was a very different person the first 10 years I knew him. He wasn’t the world’s greatest entertainer. He was like one of those grunge guys with long hair that just stares at his shoes. But I got extraordinary strength from finding one other person on the planet that felt the same way I did about rock & roll.”
While The Beatles were popular when they met, rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t yet cool in their New Jersey town. This bonded them together.
“You only need one so you don’t think you’re insane and you don’t think you’re a loser by not fitting into society,” Van Zandt said. “And I didn’t fit in and he didn’t fit in, and so we kind of had each other there in the beginning.”
He spoke about balancing his music with his acting career
Since acting in The Sopranos, Van Zandt has appeared in a number of other projects. At the same time, he has toured extensively with Springsteen and the E Street Band. He said that not wanting to be famous has helped balance his jobs.
“My natural instinct is to be out of the spotlight, behind the scenes,” he said. “If I had to identify myself, it would be as a writer-producer. So that’s part of it right there. You’re contributing to something that is complex, and recognizing greatness is one of the things that I can do. As a troubleshooter, I make bad things good, good things great, and great things better. I know how to do that. But chasing greatness has really been what gets me off in life. I seek it out, I support it when I find it, I try and create it, or I contribute to it.”
