Steve Schirripa on Growing Up in a Mob Neighborhood

You cook? I don't cook much, no. No? No. And I don't eat anything, you know, listen, I eat steak. Not much or sometimes? I eat, I could do something, I could make breakfast. Like what? What's your go-to? I could make fucking eggs, I could, you know, I could do something here if I got to make sauce. Did you ever make us a cook? Like a short order cook? You were a clam shucker, right? You told me that. I worked at an Alberto's clam house when I was in high school. Did you use to that? I would open clams, you know, when you were an order, I used to be incredible at them. Alberto's clam house was where they killed Joe Gallo. Oh, wow. But they had a second one in Brooklyn where I grew up. And- No, but Gallo was killed on Mulberry Street. Mulberry Street, there was one on Mulberry Street, Alberto's clam house, it became famous after that. And then there was one in Brooklyn and I was like 15 and I, we used to hang around on the corner and they were building it. And there was like a guy, you know, we were all hanging around getting into fucking trouble, a bunch of kids. And he pulled out a big wad of money one day. I mean like fucking hundreds and he said, come here, come on, get the fuck out of here, take them to the movies. Back then a movie was probably a dollar, you know? And I said, no, no, no, I want a job. I don't want your money. And I gave them a, he was Maddie the horse, which was a big wise guy's brother, Joe. Wow. And he kind of became like a mentor. You know, he was like a really good guy, gave me a job. I learned how to open clams, bake clams, clams for the Liguinian clams, raw clams on the half shell, you know, squeeze the lemon, the thing. Did being around a lot of those guys when you were younger, did that help you when you were in the Sopranos? Did it help you like sort of, because you knew people like them. Yeah, I grew up in that neighborhood. Like when I grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, at the time in the 70s was all a big mob enclave, big. They were everywhere. And you didn't even know who they were, you know, like Joey's uncle. And this is a guy that I went to Little League with, wind up doing 25 years for murder. And they were just in the neighborhood. They were just, you know, so yeah, I knew that world. I wasn't in that world. I went to college, you know, but I knew that world. I know people, I have friends, you know, it was just that kind of a place, you know, where you just knew them. And somebody was just telling me two days ago, the guy owned a store like Italian Deli, Ravioli store, and I didn't know that he was a hit man. And he sent me an article and he murdered two fucking guys in Coney Island. Yeah, this guy named Pete. And I had no idea about that. And I said, really? He lived up the block for me. I didn't know that. Because, you know, when you were a kid, you know, there was like, you know, he was coaching the baseball team. Then you found out later, I said, I didn't know the guy was a wise guy, like a real guy. And they were everywhere. They sold fireworks and, you know, it was that whole thing. It was all Italian American, you know, and it's changed now, you know, it's not a little bit of that, but not as much as it used to be. But when John Gotti was in his heyday, it was a very strange time for Italian Americans in New York, because that whole area, like when he would have those block parties and, you know, people, there was part of the people that would love him. Oh, yeah. To this day. Yeah. To this day, absolutely. You know, I was gone, you know, I'd left for Vegas in 7980. So I was gone through all them 80s. You know, I was in Vegas with those wise guys. You're right. And I knew some of them. I was in the battle last time I was here, the Pesci character, Tony Spallaccio, who was always very nice to me. I mean, he was giving me a 20 every time I saw. He's all right in my book. But it's interesting, like the Gotti character, him as a person was very strange. Do you know his grandson is a badass MMA fighter? No, I didn't know. His grandson, John Gotti, the third, I think it is, is a legit MMA fighter. He's really fucking good. He's shredded. The kid looks like a fucking killer. I mean, he looks like an MMA fighter covered in tattoos. I think he's undefeated. And I think he's got the majority of his fights, if not all of them are by knockout. Wow. It's kind of crazy. Listen, people love him. I never met John Gotti. He did a lot of good for a lot of people. Listen, you could only judge someone by how they treat you. Right. You know what I mean? Because people go, well, how could you, you know, blah, blah, blah. Hey, he was good to a lot of people. But he was known to be a good fighter, too, John. John was? Yeah. That's how he kind of came up. He was very good with his hands. He was toe to toe and was pretty nifty as a fighter. He was very public, though. Yeah. That was the thing that the old guard didn't like. Later, yeah. Yeah, when he became. But he was flashy when he became the boss. He was like this guy that made a big show of who he was versus a lot of these guys. Like Vincent the Chin would act crazy and walk around a bathrobe. Gotti was like Al Capone. Yeah. At least he enjoyed himself. These other guys, some of these other guys, he enjoyed himself. He was out to restaurants. Good luck. He had movie star looks. At least he enjoyed himself. He had a nice family. Some of these guys are holed up. They have millions of dollars and they live in like some shit one bedroom tenement. Like Uncle Junior. Like Uncle Junior. He lives like this shitty life. He's got hundreds of thousands here and there. It's like, why are you living like that? You might as well go out and enjoy it, right? Right. Yeah. And they still get caught. Even the guys that live like shit, they still get caught. Those old timers, you know, those old timers used to just, I don't know what they did with the money. Well, they were trying to avoid prosecution. Yeah, but. It didn't work out. Almost every mobster, unfortunately, winds up dead or in jail. Yeah. Yeah. You know? I mean. I mean.