Subscribe to Archivestuff Have your say Three months after his notorious farewell from The Sopranos, actor James Gandolfini will return to HBO with a documentary about wounded US veterans of the Iraq war, the network said. Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq will debut on the pay-cable TV channel on September 9, featuring Gandolfini's interviews with 10 American GIs recounting their experiences in surviving close brushes with death on the battlefield. The documentary, for which the Sopranos star was the executive producer, marks the first project from his Attaboy Films production company, HBO said.
The title of the film comes from a phrase adopted by many wounded Iraq war veterans referring to the day they narrowly survived a combat injury, often with horrific wounds that leave them permanently disabled. Gandolfini, 45, who has visited US troops in Iraq on behalf of the USO, produced the film from a series of in-studio interviews with Iraq war vets earlier this year, discussing "their feelings on their future, their severe disabilities and their devotion to America," HBO said. The burly actor is best known for his award-winning portrayal of Tony Soprano, a conflicted New Jersey mob boss and family man, on HBO's acclaimed gangster drama The Sopranos.
The show concluded its eight-year, six-season run last week in America. The final episodes are screening in New Zealand on TV One on Thursday nights. The finale triggered a torrent of debate by fans and critics.
Gandolfini's next acting role is expected to be a feature film portrait as Ernest Hemingway in a story centred on the writer's tempestuous romance with war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, who became the novelist's third wife. Last year, he appeared in a remake of All the King's Men that bombed with critics and the box office.
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