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This is the third
Sopranos actor to be in some serious trouble. The first was Robert Iler, the actor who plays Tony Soprano's son. He and his real-life friends decided to rob somebody in real-life like a FantasyLand Soprano. Vincent Pastore, the Sopranos ratfink Big Pussy Bumpensiero, beat his girlfriend to a pulp on the freeway then threw her out of the car. And alas, we have escalated to the final scene, murder. Lillo Brancato Jr. is the Sopranos actor who concocted a scheme to murder Tony's nephew Christopher and finds himself murdered instead. He was inovlved in a robbery which left an off-duty cop dead. He, like his TV character and the scheme that went awry, was shot during this ill-fated burglary and, while not dead, is in serious condition.
It makes sense I 'spose, when looking for character actors, what better way to get the street thug character than to use, well, a street thug.