just her speed. She learned better when she got to the audition. Robert Iler can't recall being there.

"I was so young, I don't even remember doing most of the pilot," says the Manhattan native. "I do remember having a great time, but I was wishing I was in camp. It was going to be the first summer I could go to camp, and all my friends were there.

"And then everybody on the set was like, 'Oh, the pilot probably won't even be picked up.' For this, I'd missed camp!" It was summer 1997.

A few months later, "The Sopranos" did get a series pickup from HBO. Premiering in January 1999, it became an instant sensation Then, during its spectacular run, the actors who had won the roles of Meadow and A.J.

- progeny of mob boss Tony Soprano - would grow to adulthood, At first, their friendship was out of sheer necessity. "We had to be a team," Sigler explains. "We were the only young cast members.

" Now in their 20s, Sigler and Iler need little prodding to wax nostalgic about their "Sopranos" stint as the series (airing 9 p.m. Sundays on HBO) nears Breaking in was easy for Sigler.

"When it started," she says, "I was by her dad and annoyed by her brother. It wasn't something very far-fetched for me to play." Meanwhile in the pilot, Sigler's looming real-life eating disorder was Iler, then a moonfaced butterball, instantly established A.

J. as a spoiled brat. Marking his 13th birthday on the pilot, he memorably pitched a fit - foul language and all - that his party would be missing his grandmother's ziti.

"You've gotten quite a bit more handsome since then," Sigler teases. "I was always handsome," Iler cracks, "under all the fat." These days, Iler is trim and fit, presenting himself for a recent breakfast Having arrived earlier (Iler text-messaged her that he was detained, leggings, sweater and bright-colored tennies.

A lovely young woman with luminous brown eyes, she seems a softer version of the often defiant, outspoken so many ways, I love her," Sigler makes clear. "But there are many times when I don't like her." Portraying Meadow, Sigler says for years she approached it more like a game learn my lines when I got there.

" with Meadow's gravely injured father, played by series star James Gandolfini. "He was an amazing presence, even lying there in a coma," Sigler marvels. "He affected me so much.

" "He's a cool guy," Iler says. "I never feel more privileged than when I get to do scenes with him. He brings something out of me I couldn't do by myself.