Tony Soprano and Deception in Character Design

Tony Soprano to Meadow: "There is no Mafia."

There's a scene I find myself thinking about quite a lot from David Chase's The Sopranos. It's in the first season and Tony has taken his daughter, Meadow, on a road trip tour of college campuses. While waiting in the lobby of an East Coast private school, Tony finds himself looking up at a placard inscribed with the words of Nathaniel Hawthorne, an alum. This after he's spent the better part of the episode balancing his role as father while hunting down a witness-protected "rat" that Tony happens to spot while getting gas:

“No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.”

Reflecting on his creative approach in crafting the seminal show, Chase has said about his outlook: “...often, network television is about people saying exactly what’s on their minds. This show is about people acting in a passive-aggressive—or aggressive—way.”

Here we have two sentiments that offer a principle of complexity in terms of character design. Both relate to deception.

I find it’s a valuable design philosophy—that a character can experience and author their own deceit—because it frees the character and the writing from the obligation of being forthright.

By Chase's reasoning, a character is given permission to mislead. The audience, other characters, themselves, and the writer his or herself. In turn, the audience and the writer are able to experience the characters as nearer to alive, rather than like carts on a track or marionettes on a string. A belief which goes a long way toward conjuring an effective dramatic illusion.

It’s also grounded in a lived context. Most of the time, people don’t say exactly what they mean. I don't know. Maybe sometimes they do. But more often they can't, and even when they do want to communicate life subtly diverts them in countless ways.

Take Tony, who embodies the limits inherent in communication. He reveals himself, often contradictorily, depending on the lights in which he is seen. He wears one mask with Meadow. Another with the guys. Yet another in Melfi's office, where his ego or his job makes another demand, and another lie or half-truth is told. As we follow him, we witness his manifold nature—sometimes with bewilderment or moral disgust, and often with deep sympathy, because he feels so real and familiar to us.

At the same time, we see Tony grappling with his own masks and examining his nature in a way that doesn't easily strain credibility, unlike many self-aware or meta-theatrical portrayals.

For him, self-reflection and self-bewilderment are not just narrative devices—they are fundamental to his condition. They are also core design features. It also must be said that James Gandolfini is a gifted actor and a preternaturally convincing Tony.

Of course, most stories eventually demand clarity in some form. Where courage or epiphany or some kind of confrontation cuts through the resistance at work and a resolution is achieved. But to get there, I find what isn’t said, and what was miscommunicated is just as relevant on the page.