Alec Baldwin Wanted to Play the Character Who Gets to 'Whack' Tony Soprano on 'The Sopranos'

The actor recalled his attempts to land the part on the Talking Sopranos podcast

Alec Baldwin once did what he could to try to play the guy who kills James Gandolfini's Sopranos character, Tony Soprano.

During an appearance on Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa's Talking Sopranos podcast on Monday, Baldwin opened up to the series alums about the lengths he went to in attempt to land a role on the HBO series.

"I called up whoever it was, I forget, and I said, 'Tell them, when it's time to kill Jimmy, tell them' — this was early, before you get to the end — 'there's only one man in this business who should come in, whack Jimmy, and ride off with [his on-screen wife] Edie [Falco], and I am that man,'" recalled Baldwin, 63. "I am the guy who needs to blow Jimmy away and take Edie, who I'm madly in love with, away."

"And they were like, 'Sure, great. We'll add your name to the list of all the Irish actors who think that they should be on The Sopranos,'" he joked.

Alec Baldwin. Roy Rochlin/Getty

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Baldwin, a Sopranos superfan, also discussed why he believes the acclaimed series had such a lasting impact. "The Sopranos becomes one of the shows where it's like a band, you know what I mean? Everybody's servicing the same goal. There's shows where people come on and the individual cast members are very bright and shiny and everything works. In sitcoms, they're very funny and there might not be a need for them to be in service of the same thing," he said.

"Great acting to me is like music, and everybody's got to be playing off the same sheet music. And [creator, writer and executive producer David] Chase, of course, is this legendary writer. You get a couple seasons into the show and you've got the best actors on TV who are all jamming the same tune," Baldwin continued. "They're all servicing the same story. Nobody's off here doing their own thing, everybody fits together in a really beautiful way — and I love that."

The 30 Rock alum added that the series became "one of those shows where you're like, 'Who do I got to sleep with to get a part on The Sopranos? I want to be on that show!'"

While Baldwin never got the chance to appear on The Sopranos, fans also never got to see what truly became of Tony in the series finale, which famously concluded by abruptly cutting to black in the final scene. Chase, however, did reveal what actually happened to Tony many years later.

Anthony Neste/Hbo/Kobal/Shutterstock

"When you said there was an end point, you don't mean Tony at Holsten's [the diner], you just meant, 'I think I have two more years' worth of stories left in me?" The Sopranos Sessions co-author Alan Sepinwall asked in an interview for the 2019 book, to which Chase replied, "Yes, I think I had that death scene around two years before the end ... But we didn't do that."

As co-author Matt Zoller Seitz pointed out that Chase "just referred to that as a death scene," the series creator replied: "F--- you guys."

The Sopranos ran for six seasons on HBO from 1999 to 2007. This September, Gandolfini's son, Michael Gandolfini, is set to take on his late father's role as Tony in a prequel film titled The Many Saints of Newark.