The Sopranos (The Sopranos episode) Michael Santoro play Irina and Father Phil respectively. For future episodes, these roles were recast with Oksana Lada and Paul Schulze. Drea De Matteo was originally simply cast as a restaurant hostess for this one episode only. The filmmakers liked her performance, and her character was developed into the role of Adriana La Cerva in future episodes. The pork store used as a meeting place is Centanni's Meat Market, a real butcher shop in Elizabeth, New Jersey. However, because the shop had a steady business and because local business owners were annoyed with the incidental effects of having a television
The Sopranos ranked first in "Rolling Stone"'s list of the 100 greatest TV shows of all time. In March 2018, New Line Cinema announced that they have purchased a film detailing the "Sopranos" background story, set in the 1960s during the Newark riots. Titled "The Many Saints of Newark", it is written by David Chase and Lawrence Konner and will be directed by Alan Taylor. David Chase had worked as a television producer for more than 20 years before creating "The Sopranos". He had been employed as a staff writer or producer for several television series, including "", "Switch", "The Rockford Files",