'Sopranos' Prequel Film Taps Alessandro Nivola for Lead Role

The 'Disobedience' star is negotiating to play Dickey Moltisanti in 'The Many Saints of Newark' for Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema.


Actor Alessandro Nivola (Face/Off, American Hustle) is in talks to play Dickey Moltisanti in The Sopranos prequel movie for New Line Cinema and Warner Bros.


Alan Taylor is set to direct The Many Saints of Newark, which returns David Chase to the world of The Sopranos for the feature prequel, which he co-wrote with Lawrence Konner. Nivola, who also stars in Sebastian Lelio's Disobedience opposite Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdam, will play Moltisanti, a charismatic but violent made man who falls in love with his father’s much younger bride, a recent immigrant from Italy.


Childless himself, Moltisanti meanwhile does his best to mentor a teenage Tony Soprano, the son of a family friend who’s serving a multiyear sentence in prison. The story for the prequel is set in the era of the Newark riots in the 1960s, when African-Americans and Italians in New Jersey were at each other's throats and, among the gangsters of each group, it became lethal.


Other fan-favorite Sopranos characters besides Moltisanti (who was never seen during the series, but who whose son Christopher was a central character) will be seen in the film.


Nivola also stars in Jaron Albertin’s indie feature Weightless, and will next be seen opposite Jesse Eisenberg in Riley Stearns’s martial arts satire The Art of Self Defense, which Bleecker Street has scheduled for a spring release.


In addition, Nivola has lined up the lead role in the Channel 4 limited series Foreign Skies, adapted by Lucy Kirkwood. Nivola’s production company King Bee has a first-look TV development deal with eOne Studios after producing two seasons of the HBO comedy Doll & Em.