10 Iconic TV Characters Only ONE Actor Could Play
2. Tony Soprano - The Sopranos
In the pantheon of all-time great TV performances, it's impossible to ignore James Gandolfini's towering performance as mobster Tony Soprano on The Sopranos.
As a character, Tony subverted a lot of the expectations of screen gangsters - yes, he was violent and quick-tempered, but also wracked with anxiety and depressive tendencies, for which he was in therapy for the bulk of the show's six seasons.
And none of it would work without Gandolfini's expertly calibrated performance, which vacillates between intense sociopathy and simmering calm on the turn of a dime.
A lot of actors wouldn't be able to nail Tony's duality as family man and mobster, or simply be unable to resist the urge to dabble in cliched scenery-chewing, yet Gandolfini's unique temperament as an actor allowed him to transform a larger-than-life mob boss into a flesh-and-blood human being.
More than perhaps any other TV character in history, it's truly impossible to consider anybody else playing Tony - though fittingly, his son Michael did portray a younger version of the character for the recent prequel film The Many Saints of Newark.