‘Sopranos’ Casting Call Draws a Mob

OK, we’re lookin’ for a body. Maybe a coupla bodies. Dey ain’t gotta be pretty, just good.

People got da point even if the producers of “The Sopranos” didn’t use those exact words in issuing a casting call for the popular HBO series about a fictional New Jersey mob family.

In fact, 13,000 Soprano wannabes turned out Saturday at Harrison High School, dreaming of becoming the next Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bompensiero, the snitch who got whacked last season and ended up in a watery grave. (The name, by the way, evokes the real Anthony “Little Pussy” Russo, assassinated at Long Branch’s Harbor Island Spa, who was named for his fondness for a pet cat.)

And, yeah, you could say it was a mob scene.

Lines stretched for blocks, so many people that the casting call was shut down after just 30 minutes. People left out were told to mail their applications.

Police had to call in reinforcements to handle the crowds and highway entrances to Harrison were closed temporarily.

Joey Saladino came all the way from Coral Springs, Fla.

“When we came through the [turnpike] toll booths, we were wondering how many Italians there were in Jersey,” he said. “We just found out.”

Applicants had to be age 16 or older. Most important, they had to be “Italian American looking,” and many added a movie version of mob costuming.

Saladino, who said he sometimes gets bit parts in gangster flicks shot in Florida, wore a black pinstripe suit, black shirt and black tie, accessorized with a gold chain and cross and what he claimed was a real Rolex.

Being a Soprano was a dream--like the best cannoli and pasta e fagioli he ever had all rolled into one.

HBO had stressed there was no guarantee that any of Saturday’s hopefuls would appear any time soon alongside Anthony Soprano, Uncle “Junior” Soprano or Paulie Walnuts.

The show received 18 Emmy nominations on Thursday.

But it also has stirred anger.

One New Jersey group last month awarded a “Pasta-tute” award for negative media portrayals of Italian Americans.

Manny Alfano of Bloomfield, whose Italian-American One Voice Committee handed out that award, took umbrage at the requirement that Saturday’s applicants be “Italian American looking.”

“Does that mean that anyone who fits the stereotype of a buffoon, bum, bigot or bimbo?” he asked.