Much like New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano, New Jersey actor James Gandolfini—who played the head of the Soprano crime family for six seasons—was a protective dad. In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, Gandolfini’s 25-year-old son Michael, who is following in his father’s footsteps as an actor, spoke about what it was like growing up on the set of The Sopranos.

“When I’d visit him on The Sopranos set, I’d hang out in his trailer,” Michael said of going to work with his dad. “I had my own little drawer of toys and things to keep me occupied. My parents didn’t want me outside on set, exposed to the show’s violence and language.”

This didn’t sit well with Michael, even at a young age, as he always wanted to be a part of the action. “I already understood the idea of filmmaking and wanted to be a part of it,” he said. “Being excluded on set drove me crazy. My parents were protective and wanted me to enjoy being a kid. From my father’s perspective, if I was going to follow him into the business, he wanted me to discover acting on my own.”

Though Michael originally gravitated toward sports, he discovered theater in high school. After performing in school versions of Into the Woods and Shrek: The Musical, Michael decided to attend NYU to study acting.

In 2021, Michael received a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the chance to play the younger version of his father’s iconic character in The Sopranos prequel movie, The Many Saints of Newark. There was just one problem: Michael had never seen an episode of The Sopranos.

So, like millions of other Gen Zs, Michael sat down and binge-watched the series. Yet he found a way to separate his emotional connection to the man on the screen, who at this point had passed away nearly a decade previously, and the character he was playing.

“Going through the series to prep wasn’t like watching home movies,” Michael told The Wall Street Journal. “Tony was a role, and there were many layers to what my dad was doing with the character.”

Since his breakthrough performance in The Many Saints of Newark, Gandolfini has appeared in TV series like The Offer and Daredevil: Born Again and movies including Beau is Afraid and Warfare.