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NEW YORK -- Jamie-Lynn Sigler was a high-school kid with a knack for musicals who figured that anything called The Sopranos would be just her speed. She learned better at the audition.
Robert Iler can't recall being there.

"I was so young, I don't even remember doing most of the pilot," he says. "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, HBO picked up The Sopranos. In January 1999, it became an instant sensation. And during the show's run, the actors who had won the roles of Meadow and A.

J. -- progeny of mob boss Tony Soprano -- would grow to adulthood, good friends all the way.
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 early 20s, Sigler and Iler need little prodding to wax nostalgic about their Sopranos stint as the series nears the end.

"When it started," she says, "I was playing a teenage girl who wasn't getting along with her mom and was frustrated by her dad and annoyed by her brother. It wasn't something very far-fetched."
Iler, then a moon-faced butterball, instantly established A.

J. as a spoiled brat. Marking his 13th birthday on the pilot, he memorably pitched a fit, f-word and all.

"You've gotten quite a bit more handsome since then," Sigler teasingly tells him.
"I was always handsome," Iler cracks -- "under all the fat."
These days, Iler is trim and fit, and Sigler seems a softer version of the often defiant, outspoken Meadow.

"After playing this character for so long and having grown up with her in so many ways, I love her," Sigler says. "But there are many times when I don't like her."
That goes double for Iler, whose character remains devoutly selfish and lazy.

Sigler says for years she approached her role more like a game than serious work."I wouldn't even know the scene I was doing until I got there: I would learn my lines when I got there."
But she found new inspiration while shooting last year's hospital scenes with 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."
Through the seasons, the Sopranos siblings faced obstacles and made mistakes. Likewise, the actors who played them dealt with real-life growing pains.

In 2001, Iler was arrested and, amid much publicity, charged with robbery and possession of marijuana. He got three years' probation.
The show, and life, has cemented their bond.

"I truly love him," Sigler says, "and we've always looked out for each other."
"It's so boring," Iler says, "that we like each other so much."
Meadow and A.

J. should be so close.
is shown at 9 p.

m. Sundays on HBO.