When fans of “The Sopranos” last saw David Proval, he was playing bitter gangster Richie Aprile, who’d walked straight out of prison and into a New Jersey crime family where his role was suddenly unclear. The world had changed and he hadn’t.
A select group of VIPs at Bleecker Street’s Sheen Center were recently treated to a reading of “It Fell Off a Truck,” where Proval portrayed a shady gangster returning home to a son he barely knows after a long stint in the FBI’s witness protection program. And once more, his role in the family is filled with twists and turns.
“It Fell Off a Truck” is playwright and celebrity publicist Jules Feiler’s largely, though not totally, fictional comedy about the mob-adjacent father who raised him in Fanwood, N.J. The project reunites Proval with former “Sopranos” actor Federico Castelluccio, who played mob enforcer Furio Giunta on the HBO hit.
Castelluccio will be directing a film version of “It Fell Off a Truck” if readings like the one in lower Manhattan Wednesday attract funding from a packed house that included former heavyweight boxing champ Larry Holmes, “The Thing” actor Tom Waites, “48 Hours” host Erin Moriarty and a smattering of faces who’ve appeared on many cops and robbers shows over the years.
Feiler told the Daily News he’s also been approached about turning his script into a play, though in the early going, everyone’s sights have been set on the big screen.
Whether Proval, 80, will play the title role in an adaptation is still up in the air, but the main character himself is familiar to Castelluccio.
“These guys who come out of the can or the witness protection program, that’s all they know is to get back to that life,” Castelluccio told the Daily News.
The New Jersey-raised, Naples, Italy-born movie maker said Proval’s portrayal of an unconventional dad and above average crook Wednesday “stole the show.”
Castelluccio appreciates that Feiler’s play approaches the aging gangster cliché with a sense of humor, which isn’t always the case for movies and plays dealing with the Underworld.
“The writing, the dialogue, is fabulous,” he said.
Though Feiler has been around showbiz his entire life, working with mercurial personalities like Dennis Rodman and Mike Tyson, he’s been careful about making sure he wasn’t part of the stories in which he’s involved behind the scenes. Around 2005, Feiler said his connection to the boxing world and “The Sopranos” came together on the show’s set, when he brought Muhammad Ali to meet James Gandolfini. The surprise visit was set up by the former champ’s daughter Rasheda Ali, who’s also worked with Feiler.
According to Feiler, Gandolfini was lying in a hospital bed reading a newspaper, oblivious to his surroundings while waiting for filming to resume, when the boxing icon approached.
“Ali goes up to him and smacks the newspaper — James didn’t move,” he said. “Ali smacked it again.”
The second time, Gandolfini put down the paper to see who was messing with him and saw Ali standing over him.
“Holy f—k!” the legendary TV gangster howled before jumping out of bed and excitedly greeting the heavyweight hero.
Looking back at his own father’s life, Feiler recalled being told gifts he’d been given had fallen from a truck. He makes reference to that metaphor for stolen good in his play, where the character based on his own life said he always wondered why things in their home that had supposedly fallen from trucks were never damaged. He later figured it out.
“I grew up hearing that all the time,” Feiler recalls.
Proval shared his secret for effectively playing a terrifying gangster on a very popular TV show, then making audiences laugh in a similar role on stage.
“There’s a catchy word for it,” he joked. “Genius!”
When asked to think of funny gangsters in movies, Proval recalled James Caan in “Honeymoon in Vegas” and Marlon Brando in “The Freshman.”
“Some of the funniest guys I ever met were the tough guys — they have a very dry sense of humor,” he said.
Wednesday’s reading was directed by Charles Messina, who is working with Dion DiMucci to bring the singer’s life story to Broadway in a musical called “The Wanderer.”
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IAN VOGLER/POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesWelcome to this special edition of Royalist, The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family, bringing together the latest developments as the world prepares for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral tomorrow, Monday September 19. Subscribe here to get Royalist in your inbox every Sunday.“I just wish they were together”“Heartbroken” and “devastated”: that is how Prince Harry is reportedly feeling after the military uniform he was finally allowed to wear
Royal expert Neil Sean dishes on the latest gossip involving Harry and Meghan and this time the menu was not exactly as described by some in the media.
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