By Advocate.com Editors

Originally published on Advocate.com April 28 2001 12:00 AM ET

It was the direct intervention of Julia Roberts that made Sopranos star James Gandolfini take the role of the gay hit man in the film The Mexican, according to The [London] Mirror. Gandolfini admits, “Julia wanted me to do it, and I didn’t want to do anything that was completely different from Tony Soprano, as I didn’t have a lot of time to do any research. It was a little bit different, but it seemed to fit with me, so I figured, what the hell?” For her part, Roberts told the paper, “It’s so amazing what James does with Tony Soprano. Here he is, a cold-blooded killer. And we love him! That’s quite an achievement.”