Michael Imperioli Is Ripe For a 2021 Comeback
Michael Imperioli AKA Christopher Moltisanti from The Sopranos AKA Frankie from the animated film Shark Tale has been making his way back into the limelight this year. From live meditation sessions to dropping a full-length rock album to giving us an incredible anecdote on James Gandolfini’s obsession with Green Day, could Michael Imperioli find a second wave in something we actually want? A second wave in relevance perhaps? All the signs point towards yes! Michael Imperioli is going to take 2021 by storm and here’s why…
Let’s start with his Instagram page. @realmichaelimperioli is your destination incase you run into any impostors. Upon your arrival you’ll be introduced into a tasteful curation of musicians, thinkers, and thespians alike - as he tributes them with a (grainy albeit tastefully grainy) photo of his subjects. Don’t worry these aren’t three paragraph elitist tirades on how everything peaked during 70’s No Wave Cinema, rather, they are short, informative, and passionate quips on shit that he loves. Expect to see tributes towards his fellow Sopranos costars, theater mates, actors & actresses he admires, and best of all: music he’s listening to.
How incredible is this??? A++ caption! He spells Big Thief wrong (hasn’t edited but fuck it,) tags the label, tags the band, hashtags on point, and finally tags NTS Radio - a FANTASTIC online radio station out of London that Michael was recently guest spinning on. His show appeared on NTS last month and is titled “632 ELYSIAN FIELDS” with the music inspired from A Streetcar Named Desire. Listen to his set here.
Another surprisingly wholesome facet of his Insta page are his live meditation sessions he holds on his IGTV. Michael is a practicing Buddhist and has held two sessions of Meditation 101 that have been actually fantastic. He has a very calming voice, offers sage advice on how to deal with our emotions in such a tumultuous time of our lives right now. Also there is something blissfully absurd about being mindful with a man who I’ve seen on camera shoot mobsters with no mercy and spiral out of control on coke and heroin in the same episode.
A tastefully curated Insta page that his publicist definitely doesn’t touch, a residency on a top-tier radio station, how can he top this? Well he can and HE DID. Michael just released an album with his band Zopa, and yep of course he’s the frontman. Major Lou Reed/Pavement/Early Bowie vibes coming from this album in the best possible way. The dude can shred on guitar and he has a wicked voice to suit - I’m serious when I say that if he released “Diamonds Into Dust” in like 1978 he’d be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by now. By the time we can go back to concerts fingers crossed by 2021, a surefire way to breach the astral plane would be to see Zopa in some dingy bar on the Lower East Side as Michael rips a solo right in front of your melting face.
What blows my mind is how we could see this resurrection bubbling from underneath the surface. It was Kith x Bergdorf Goodman collection that got the ball rolling back in 2017. I didn’t start watching The Sopranos until late 2018, and never followed Kith too closely so this obviously flew completely under my radar but good lord…
Like…come ON….
Immaculate!
(You can also find some pieces from the collection on Grailed)
What incredible foresight from Ronnie Fieg! Michael was nearly two years past his last film feature where he played a supporting role in a crime thriller called The Wannabe. I wouldn’t have called him the hottest actor in Hollywood in 2017 or even someone washed up who could be resurrected for a quick box office hit/feel-good story (see Mickey Rourke.) Apart from appearing in a few episodes of b-list TV here and there Trump-era Michael Imperioli definitely felt like lull period and a period that he didn’t deserve! Let’s make it up to him in 2021 with better roles baby! And maybe another Kith x Bergdorf collab too if BG makes it out of Chapter 11 Bankrupcy baby!
We definitely aren’t going to pigeonhole our talented, multi-faceted king either. Yes, he is a shoe-in for literally any toxic prospective Italian-American mafioso character, but give this man some passion parts! We know Michael loves the 70’s Punk era. I can see him playing Alan Vega or Lou Reed. Hell, Michael even wrote an ENTIRE FANFIC NOVEL ABOUT LOU REED. A Paul Thomas Anderson biopic on The Velvet Underground starring our buddy Michael would shatter my universe. The possibilities are endless.
Someone’s gotta come out of this pandemic a winner, and I sure as hell don’t want it to only be John Krasinski for getting that check selling his fatuous Some Good News series. Michael Imperioli has put in the work, he’s got massive talent in more areas than the screen, and is actually just an all-around good dude. Let’s declare 2021 the year of Michael Imperioli.