Actors from The Sopranos reunite for Nicky Deuce

Actors from The Sopranos reunite for Nicky Deuce

  May 26, 2013    Dapper_Don

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Steve Schirripa (l.) and Noah Munck star in Nickelodeon’s “Nicky Deuce,” based on Schirripa’s novel.

Steve Schirripa owes everything to Brooklyn.
Whether he’s writing about his real-life role of raising two daughters or portraying the world’s most tranquil dad on ABC’s “The Secret Life of an American Teenager,” a mobster on “The Sopranos” or an uncle to a geeky kid visiting Brooklyn in Nickelodeon’s “Nicky Deuce,” Schirripa plays it all by old-fashioned Brooklyn rules.

“Look, I’m just a regular guy from Brooklyn with some strong ideas on things and some stories to tell,” says Schirripa, a Brooklyn College communications graduate.

He sure is.

The best-selling author of “A Goomba’s Guide to Life,” who rose to fame as Bobby Bacala in “The Sopranos,” has a new nonfiction book out called “Big Daddy’s Rules: Raising Daughters Is Tougher Than I Look,” in which he tears into modern child rearing.

When you talk to Schirripa, the dad of daughters who are 17 and 21, he sounds just like his book.

“Look, I don’t buy this idea that my daughters are my best friends,” he says. “No, they’re not. They’re my kids. And what I say goes because I know what’s best for them. No other guy on this planet or in cyberspace is ever gonna love them more than me. No boyfriend, no Facebook friend, no husband. Me, I’m their father, and I’ll love them and be there for them for life.”

Schirripa wants his kids to be confident enough to try almost anything. But he sets limits.

“I’m not one of these parents who wanna be so down with their kids that they buy them a keg of beer for a Sweet 16 party,” says Schirripa. “My kids do what I say. If they back-talk and ask, ‘Why?’ my answer is simple: ‘Because I said so!’ That’s the most underrated sentence in a dad’s vocabulary.”

Schirripa (l.) got pals (from l.) James Gandolfini, Michael Imperioli and Tony Sirico to appear in “Nicky Deuce.”

On Monday night, “Nicky Deuce” — based on Schirripa’s novel — premieres on Nickelodeon. Daily News TV critic David Hinckley gave it four stars.

“It took me six years to get this movie made,” says Schirripa. “It’s set in the present, but it’s really based on the Brooklyn of my childhood in the ’60s and ’70s.”

Schirripa, who now lives in lower Manhattan, says that there is never going to be a “Sopranos” movie or sequel.

“‘Nicky Deuce’ is the closest thing to a ‘Sopranos’ cast reunion you’ll ever see,” he says. “A bunch of the old gang was gracious enough to be in my movie, including Jimmy Gandolfni, Tony Sirico, Mike Imperioli and Vince Curatola. And me. We’re all in it. We had a blast making it. Like old times.”

The story is about Nicky Borelli (Noah Munck), a sheltered suburban teen who gets sent by his father to stay with his brother, Uncle Frankie (Schirripa) in Bensonhurst for the summer.

Uncle Frankie starts showing Nicky Deuce the Brooklyn ropes, introducing him to neighborhood goombas played by the noted “Sopranos” actors, learning vital street smarts as the story blossoms into a coming of age romance on the stoops and streets of a nearly vanished Brooklyn.

“It’s meant to be good family fun with lots of Brooklyn laughs,” says Schirripa. “We even re-created all the old Bath Ave. storefronts of the long-gone mom-and-pop shops of my youth. Walking onto the set was like entering a nostalgic time warp for me. This was important because the movie is more than a few laughs. It’s also about something. Something we’ve lost. A sense of living by a code of honor and respect that I learned in that Brooklyn as a kid. The same values that influence my writing and acting career and my most important role in life as a father.”

Schirripa has a simple goal as a parent.

“In the end, all I want my girls to be are good people and to be safe,” he says. “If I succeed at that, then I succeeded as a father. I want my kids to be good people and to be safe. That’s all I want for Father’s Day, which for me is every day.”

With Brooklyn rules.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/brooklyn-steve-schirripa-living-large-article-1.1354807#ixzz2UQ4wM0hm