John Ventimiglia - Reddit AMA

Reddit AMA

On July 9, 2012, Ventimiglia sat down with a mystery redditor to conduct an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the wildly popular social news site Reddit. After three hours, Ventimiglia answered forty questions from his fans, including many questions about The Sopranos, as well as Cop Land and his latest film Ponies. As most fans wanted to know, he gave his thoughts on the controversial series finale of The Sopranos.

"I thought it was the first time that you saw someone being killed on film, from the inside. Usually in a gangster film, you see them get shot, fall down and die. In this, we were all such a part of Tony, that in my opinion, David let us be part of Tony's death. Lights out. End of Story."

In another response, he expands on his thoughts of the finale:

"The only way I could interpret the ending, is that Tony was shot and killed. After all, he was a human being involved in a business in which this was not an uncommon event. I think that David (Chase) chose to end it that way, out of some kind of dignity for the character. And also to let us take part in what it's like which I would assume is often instant blackout. It was a clean kill, and for all of us fans, it seemed like a merciful way to say goodbye."

When asked if this was a known fact among the cast and crew, Ventimiglia responded with:

"Nobody told me. Not the writers or the producers. I think they wanted to leave it for ourselves. And that was what I decided... Among the cast, there was a lot debate. Some thought it was a beautiful ending, and some disagreed."