'The Many Saints Of Newark' Director Just Said This Is The Hardest Job He's Ever Done & My Engine Is Revved

THR- Taylor has a long history of handling dramatic shifts — both onscreen and in his career. During the course of three decades helming prestige television, the Emmy winner introduced the world to Don Draper on the Mad Men pilot, brought dragons to Westeros on Game of Thrones, staged Carrie’s devastating breakup with Aidan on Sex and the City and directed acclaimed entries of The West Wing, Rome, Lost, Six Feet Under, Big Love, Deadwood and, of course, The Sopranos. He also, somewhat notoriously, tackled two major big-screen franchise films (more on that later).

“There’s a kind of irony to the fact that David took the classic gangster movie and put it on the small screen and made it contemporary, and here we are going back in time and putting it on the big screen — so we’re undoing the clever thing he did,” says the lean, white-haired Taylor in his usual rapid-fire delivery. “Also, part of the show’s visual power was contemporary trashy America with this New Jersey style in the 1990s. We’re going back to a time that’s more romanticized, a time that Tony thought of as the golden age.”

So how do you make a Sopranos movie that is, in some ways, exactly what The Sopranos was reacting against?

“Doing this in a way that would work for David’s vision was a huge challenge, something I would lie awake at night thinking about,” Taylor says. “This is the hardest job I’ve ever done.”

And given Taylor’s career journey that led to the Many Saints, that’s really saying something.

Before I get into this...What a fucking RESUME on this Alan Taylor fella. I've always known he's directed some Sopranos episodes before but is this guy one of the most decorated dudes around? He has to be with those credentials. We're talkin' the Mad Men pilot, Game of fucking Thrones, Sex and the City (haven't watched yet but it's on my list because I'm a basic bitch), The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Deadwood (shoutout Al Swearengen), and of course the final boss of television, the Sopranos. What a chameleon.

Now to the Many Saints of Newark! With a dude like that saying it's his biggest challenge yet...I am even MORE intrigued than I already was which is very difficult to do. I'm pretty excited in the fact of how much more serious this movie looks than the actual Sopranos since, really, is a fucking comedy. As he states in the article giving that "Sopranos feel" to the older, more romanticized times of the mob sounds super interesting. This is happening in the late 60's so I'm picturing the timeframe of Goodfellas with that Sopranos flair.

That pretty much just sounds like a dream. The release of this thing cannot come soon enough. I just can't wait to see whether harnessing a young Tony Soprano was truly a more difficult task for Alan Taylor than bringing to life Don Draper, Daenarys, Carrie Bradshaw, Al Swearengen, and whatever the characters from West Wing's names are.