‘Mobbed’ in Jersey

It was William Wellman’s classic 1931 gangster flick, “The Public Enemy,” which inspired David Chase to create “The Sopranos,” HBO’s darkly comedic series about the New Jersey Mafia that premieres Sunday.

“I have always been a fan of mob movies since I was a little kid,” says Chase, who also serves as executive producer on the 13-week series. “They always seemed to be about the grown-up world--all the dark shadows and the strange goings on and these high-stakes conversations that sometimes you don’t understand as a kid.”

“Public Enemy,” which starred James Cagney, was the most shocking thing Chase ever saw as a youngster. “It was scary,” Chase recalls. “I had nightmares about it. I guess with kids, sometimes you become attracted to what scares you.”

Out of those memories, Chase created Anthony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini (“A Civic Action”), and then began building his world. Though Soprano is a mob kingpin and cut from the same cloth as the macho gangsters of “The Godfather” and “GoodFellas,” he is the midst of a mid-life crisis.

Soprano is having trouble with his wife, his kids, his aging, overbearing mother and his mistress. Besides his personal problems, he’s having difficulties controlling “the family” and the family “business.” Beset by panic attacks, he seeks help from a cerebral and attractive shrink (Lorraine Bracco), who tries to help him understand his moral dilemmas while putting him on anti-depressants.

Edie Falco plays Soprano’s wife, and veteran Nancy Marchand, best known as the sophisticated newspaper owner on “Lou Grant,” is Soprano’s nightmare of a mother, Livia. Among the members of Soprano’s mob family are Michael Imperioli, who plays Soprano’s hot-headed nephew Christopher, and rocker Stevie Van Zandt is Silvio Dante, who specializes in intimidation and Al Pacino-”Godfather” impersonations.

The mob, Chase explains, has had a pretty rough time in the past decade, capped by the arrest and imprisonment of notorious godfather, John Gotti. That, he believes, will make it easier for audiences to buy into the idea of a mob capo who is having so many personal problems he’s swallowing Prozac like candy.

“The way things are in America, sometimes it seems like everything is falling apart . . . the mob is no different,” says Chase, who previously worked on “The Rockford Files,” “I’ll Fly Away” and “Northern Exposure.” “They have been decapitated in so many places and I thought it echoed, in a comedic sense, a nervous breakdown.”

Though set in the universe of the Mafia, “The Sopranos” reflects everyone’s lives and problems, says Brad Grey, one of the producers.

“It’s essentially about a character who is struggling with his own identity,” says Grey, who also heads Brillstein Grey Entertainment. “I think at its best, it explores the hypocrisy in all of us.”

Chase, an Italian American who grew up in New Jersey, insisted the series not only be set, but also shot, in the Garden State.

“It has something to do with the images in your head in your formative years,” he explains. Besides, Chase adds, most mob movies take place in New York.

“I just wanted to do something that set it apart. As a kid, I remember reading about gangsters being arrested in Jersey. There was a mobster in the town next to ours who lived in a big, mysterious house.”

Allen Coulter, who previously worked on “The X-Files” and “Millennium,” directed two episodes of “The Sopranos” and served as producer on eight. Coulter and Chase worked closely to create a rich visual landscape for “Sopranos.”

“This is David’s poem to New Jersey,” Coulter says. “I do believe that New Jersey is to David Chase what a part of Italy was to Fellini. What David did . . . is [create a place and time] that is so specific. Like any real work of art, you can’t be general.”

Coulter says the show asks a lot of its audience. “No jokes are easy,” he explains. “There is no laugh track. No one is likable in the traditional sense, although I found all the people enormously likable.”

Livia, who happens to have the same name as Emperor Claudius’ conniving mother, is so horrific, she makes Joan Crawford look like a saint. A widow, Livia refuses to give up her house and move into a retirement community, even though she sets fire to her kitchen and runs over a friend in her car. The character is based on Chase’s own late mother.

“My mother was a character and she was, let’s say, prickly,” he says. Prickly enough that Chase’s wife kept urging him to write about her, but nothing quite clicked.

“Then I began to think a mobster would very likely have a mother like mine,” he says, “tough and difficult.”

Marchand jumped at the chance to play Livia. “I just ate her up,” she says of the character, which the actress describes as a “monster.” While Livia cares a lot for her son--”the sun rises and sets on that boy” --still she does terrible things to him.

Chase acknowledges that “motherhood is one of those things you don’t fuss with, so I don’t know how she is going to go over. But I am surprised to find out that everyone says to me, ‘that’s my mother.”’

“The Sopranos” premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO.