David Chase was "bothered" by The Sopranos finale reaction, compares fans to criminals

The Hollywood Reporter

The Sopranos creator came frustratingly close to revealing whether Tony Soprano died in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast host Scott Feinberg, who taped their conversation in front of a theater full of students at Chapman University, where Feinberg teaches. Chase says he was annoyed that the conversation about the series finale revolved around the ending, and not the entire stellar episode. "Yeah, nobody said anything about the episode. No, it was all about the ending," he says. And was that annoying? "I had no idea it would cause that much — I mean, I forget what was going on in Iraq or someplace; London had been bombed! Nobody was talking about that; they were talking about The Sopranos," he says. "It was kind of incredible to me. But I had no idea it would be that much of an uproar. And was it annoying? What was annoying was how many people wanted to see Tony killed. That bothered me." When Feinberg pointed out that fans wanted confirmation that Tony had died, Chase responded: "They wanted to know that Tony was killed. They wanted to see him go face-down in linguini, you know? And I just thought, 'God, you watched this guy for seven years and I know he’s a criminal. But don’t tell me you don’t love him in some way, don’t tell me you’re not on his side in some way. And now you want to see him killed? You want justice done? You’re a criminal after watching this sh*t for seven years.' That bothered me, yeah."