Pantoliano, Joe - famous for the Sopranos and the Matrix

By: Dominick A. Miserandino

Joe Pantoliano has reached a level of fame playing infamous bad guys like Cypher in the Matrix and Ralphie Cifaretto from the Sopranos. Now Joe explains what makes bad guys tick and why he's attracted to them.

DM) In looking over your bio, some characters stood out to me like Cypher in the Matrix, and Ralph Cifaretto in the Sopranos-- they're not often the nicest of characters.

JP) Well, let's stop there for a minute. Cypher I find one of the most interesting characters. People tend to look at Cypher as evil incarnate, I see Cypher as someone who decided to take the red pill; was a freedom fighter; who was disenfranchised from his leaders; who made a conscious effort to kill or be killed. Of all of the characters of the matrix, Cypher was the only one that had doubts. The only two characters in that movie that are clearly defined are Agent Smith, a program, and Cypher, a human. He leaves the pod; he goes into the matrix and discovers that the Matrix is a lot more work than he anticipated. He's gone through six Neos, and now he's going, "I have the opportunity to kill my friends, and I can be somebody famous." I think Cypher is not a bad guy; he does a bad thing which makes us human. Every day we have a choice to do good or evil. In the metaphor of the Matrix, I think it's one of the top ten movies of all time. I think the Wachowskis have used a metaphor of mythology and religious backgrounds. Cypher is clearly a Judas character; as Morpheus is a Peter character; and Neo is Jesus; and Trinity is Mary Magdalene. He plays a major part of the deconstruction. And evil is won over by Neo in the end. The last breath that Cypher makes is saying, "If Neo is truly the one, then a miracle must happen to save you." And he realizes in his last breath that he was all wrong.

DM) Do you think the character really is aware of it at that last second?

JP) Well, he screams, "No" while he's on the phone with Trinity. He says something has to happen right now for me not to get killed. He turns and sees Tank, and the last word out of his mouth is, "No." The Wachowskis worked on that moment for eight hours. The Matrix is an interesting movie; I can go on like this with you for hours. They wanted to reach a core audience of non-thinking, who would be entertained by the special effects; and if you dig deeper, there's another level; and if you dig deeper and want to get religious about it, there's another level.

DM) You're getting deep right off the bat.

JP) So Dominick, at nine in the morning, I've already given you food for thought. (laughs)

JP) There's The Fugutive, and US Marshals-- I play the same character in both. There's La Bamba. If you look at my resume I've been in over 100 movies, and I'd say less than 10% of them are like that. Risky Business, I played Guido the killer pimp. That's when my career as a bad guy began. In 1983, Risky Business introduced me to the public this way. The successes that I've had are like the Ralphie character. He's a homicidal sociopath, but when you get into that last episode of the Sopranos and his sexual appetite.... We all are born good and with kindness in our hearts. We have to be taught to be evil. What makes Ralph more cold blooded than Tony Soprano? We see his therapist being his enabler in a lot of respects. She's talking to her own therapist about Tony. Ralphie's got major issues... sexually, they hint that he needs to be sodomized to enjoy sex. If you analyze that character and the elements in it, every time he causes violence on somebody, he pushes them so they would strike the first blow, and then he would harm them. The girlfriend, he calls her a "slob," and he says, "We'll get a nice picket fenced house, and we'll name the baby after you so she can be a cock-sucking slob like her mother." And the girl hits Ralphie, and he retaliates to that. He does the same thing to Tony Soprano, to his demise. He says, "You're going to cry about a horse, when my son is lying in a hospital bed?"

DM) I understand. I'm glad to hear your perspectives on the character.

JP) Well, that's another thing on the Sopranos. Everybody is like, "Ralphie got whacked." He didn't get whacked. That was a fight to the death. I've been fortunate enough to be associated with brilliant storytelling. If you study that character's arc, his obsession with The Gladiator. Then, he and Tony fight to the death. They try to kill each other in the kitchen, and it's to Tony's credit that he's a survivor, and he kills Ralph with his bare hands as Ralph tries to kill him with his bare hands.

DM) It's a repeat of the gladiator.

JP) Absolutely. And he died for something that he didn't do, because the horse died accidentally, when he should have died for killing that girl. What makes Ralph any worse than any of those other characters? As far as I'm concerned, and I've gotten negative response from a lot of faithful audiences that watch the sopranos, I think they're all doomed souls.

DM) Why did Ralph prompt people? Was it just being self-destructive?

JP) They are all self destructive. Look at Tony's character, he's 70 lbs. overweight. That's the whole point of the show, whose going to die this year? You live by the sword, you're going to die by the sword.

DM) But it seems that Ralph, in particular is pretty destructive.

JP) Well, Ralph says to the priest, "Father, I had things done to me as a kid, bad things. You don't even want to know." I asked David Chase, and the writers pretty much felt that Ralph was physically abused by his mother's boyfriend as a kid, and sexually abused. He was probably homosexual pretending to be heterosexual. This season, the character that turned out to be gay, I think, if you investigate, I bet that he and Ralph had something going on.

DM) It seems that when you look at these characters, they're not inherently evil. They've had circumstances that brought them to that.

JP) I think that's why I'm so attracted to playing these characters. They're much more interesting then playing the hero. The heroes put on the white hat; Superman puts ion his cape; and it's easy. That's the bad guy, go and get him. Superman and Spiderman are immortal. They're Greek gods; they can't get hurt. Where's the fun in that? The only time there's fun is when there's a little kryptonite floating around. The greatest Shakespearean characters are conflicting, evil. You can't have drama without having an antagonist. I've been lucky enough to play several of memorable bad guys. The greatest actors of our time have all played bad guys. Name one that hasn't. Even Henry Fonda, in Once Upon a Time in the West.

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