Livia Soprano Returns in Digital Form

By Acheron on 2001-03-01 07:15:07

(Fox) Nancy Marchand, the recently deceased actress who played Livia Soprano, Tony's mother in the HBO hit drama, The Sopranos will grace the screen in electronic form.

Instead of writing her character out of the script completely, special effects were used to create a four minute scene that will use shots from 18 scenes from the first 2 seasons. ?The dialogue was scripted around "a sentence here, a sentence there" to create an nearly unnoticable digitally rendered segment.

"People couldn't tell the difference" when the two-episode debut of the HBO hit was previewed at Radio City Music Hall last Wednesday, said Rick Wagonheim, head of the Rhinoceros visual-effects house, which performed the computer wizardry.

The 71-year-old Marchand died last June after battling cancer and chronic pulmonary disease for several years.

Her manipulative character, Livia ? who may have ordered a hit on her son ? was a huge presence on The Sopranos and so the producers decided she just couldn't die off camera.

Marchand's character was replaced by a body double to interact with actor James Gandolfini for the scene. ?The footage was then sent to Rhinoceros where Marchand's head was placed on the body double.

The only flaws are that Tony and Livia are never face to face and Livia's head sometimes appears too small for her body.

You can catch the season premiere Sunday evening on HBO.

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