Tony Sirico was shocked and saddened, like many others, when he learned of the death of Frank Vincent, who died Wednesday at 78.
The two actors did a number of projects together, both for film and TV, with their most famous work being for the iconic HBO mob series The Sopranos.
Sirico, who played Paulie Gualtieri on the show, granted The Hollywood Reporter an interview to talk about his friend.
“We had a lot of fun together,” he told THR. “Great guy. Well respected. Great actor.”
Vincent, who also appeared in multiple films by Martin Scorsese, played Phil Leotardo, boss of the Lupertazzi crime family, on The Sopranos.
Sirico, still overcome with grief, said it would take several days to talk about all the fun and craziness they experienced on the HBO set together, so he kept it simple.
“All I can say is we had a lot of fun,” Sirico said. “On the show, [Vincent’s] character was working with another mob and I didn’t get a piece of the action with Frank before Leotardo died. But, everybody loved Frankie.”
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