Silvio Dante¶
At a glance¶
- Played by
- Steven Van Zandt
- Also
- John Magaro in The Many Saints of Newark
- Position
- Consigliere, DiMeo family
- Runs
- The Bada Bing
- Wife
- Gabriella Dante
- Fate
- Shot in "The Blue Comet" (S6E85); comatose, not expected to recover
Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in. Silvio's Pacino, done on request, for years
The quietest member of the inner circle, and the one who does the things nobody wants to discuss.
The role¶
Consigliere — counselor to the boss, outside the chain of command. Silvio is exactly right for it: he has no ambition to be boss, no interest in a crew of his own, and gives advice that is consistently sound and consistently ignored.
He runs the Bada Bing, which is the crew's office as much as it is a strip club, and manages it with the fussy competence of a small-business owner. A great deal of the series takes place in its back room.
He is also, quietly, the one who kills people. Adriana is his. When something has to be done and cannot be delegated, Tony sends Silvio, because Silvio does it without commentary, without enjoying it, and without needing to talk about it afterward.
That combination — mild, reasonable, entirely without hesitation — is more disturbing than Paulie's volatility or Ralph's sadism.
The bit¶
His Godfather Part III impression — just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in — is done on request, repeatedly, for years, and always slightly worse than the last time.
It's the show's cleanest joke about itself: a fictional mobster doing a bad impression of a fictional mobster, for other fictional mobsters who find it hilarious, in a series about men who learned how to be gangsters from movies. See Mob Movies & Self-Awareness.
The end¶
In "The Blue Comet" (S6E85), Silvio and Patsy are ambushed outside the Bing. Patsy escapes. Silvio is shot several times.
He survives, in a coma, and Tony visits him in hospital in the finale. The doctors don't expect him to wake up. Tony sits with him briefly and can't find anything to say.
Losing Silvio is the practical reason Tony is so exposed by the last episode: the man who managed everything is gone, Bobby is dead, Christopher is dead, and what's left is Paulie.
Steven Van Zandt¶
The casting is one of the show's great flukes. Van Zandt — Bruce Springsteen's guitarist, of the E Street Band — had never acted. Chase saw him inducting The Rascals into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was struck by the persona, and asked him to audition for Tony.
HBO wanted a trained actor in the lead. Rather than lose him, Chase wrote the character of Silvio Dante specifically for him.
Van Zandt also contributed to the show's music decisions, though Chase selected the tracks himself. He went on to create and star in Lilyhammer (2012), which was Netflix's first original series.