David Chase Never Expected 'Sopranos' Ending to Be Controversial
"I really had no idea about that," he said.
— -- "Sopranos" mastermind David Chase spoke to the Director's Guild of America and actually broke down that very controversial last scene.
He talks through every frame of that final, ambiguous scene from Tony walking in to picking "Don't Stop Believin" on the jukebox to all of his beloved family joining him for one last meal on the show.
What he refuses to reveal is if Tony was killed by the stranger in the restaurant.
"I thought the possibility would go through a lot of people's minds or maybe everybody's mind that he was killed," he said. "He might have gotten shot three years ago in that situation. But he didn't. Whether this is the end here, or not, it's going to come at some point for the rest of us. Hopefully we're not going to get shot by some rival gang mob or anything like that. I'm not saying that [happened]. But obviously he stood more of a chance of getting shot by a rival gang mob than you or I do because he put himself in that situation. All I know is the end is coming for all of us."
But with this question forever in the air, Chase said he never expected people to be discussing this eight years later, almost as long as the show's run from 1999 to 2007.
"I thought the ending would be somewhat jarring, sure. But not to the extent it was, and not a subject of such discussion. I really had no idea about that. I never considered the black a shot. I just thought what we see is black. The ceiling I was going for at that point, the biggest feeling I was going for, honestly, was don't stop believing," he added.
He continued, "It was very simple and much more on the nose than people think. That's what I wanted people to believe. That life ends and death comes, but don't stop believing. There are attachments we make in life, even though it's all going to come to an end, that are worth so much, and we're so lucky to have been able to experience them. Life is short. Either it ends here for Tony or some other time. But in spite of that, it's really worth it. So don't stop believing."
