Michael Imperioli Lashed Out ‘Sopranos’ Creator David Chase After Tough Audition: ‘He’s Not Even Italian!’

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In the new documentary “’Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos” (now streaming on HBO and Max), “The Sopranos” star Michael Imperioli confessed that he thought he initially botched his audition for the show.

“The idea of ​​a series on HBO didn’t have any prestige at the time,” Imperioli, 58, said on screen in the documentary.

“To be honest, it was a bit of a bargain basement of television, really. But I loved the character… his name was Dean when I first read the script.”

Imperioli played the role of Christopher Moltisanti in the Emmy-winning film “The Sopranos,” which aired on HBO from 1999 to 2007, starring James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano.

In the documentary, which offers a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the series, Imperioli also said he didn’t know series creator David Chase was Italian and laughed at Chase’s audacity in telling a mafia story.

“I was like, ‘Who is this guy’ doing a show about Italians! Scorsese and Coppola were Italian Americans,” said Imperioli, who also starred in Scorsese’s modern classic mafia film, “Goodfellas.”

He added: “But I worked really hard on it and went (to audition) for David (Chase). And David is very poker-faced… I walked out (of the audition) thinking, ‘This is not going to happen. Who cares, he’s not even Italian!'”

On screen, Chase told his side of the story.

Chase recalled Imperioli’s audition, saying, “Michael came in and he was amazing. But I played it straight. He was like, ‘Who the f–k is this guy, he’s not even Italian. F–k him!'”

Chase was actually born into a working-class Italian-American family in Mount Vernon, New York.

In a recent interview with The Post in August, Imperioli also said he accidentally caused an incident on set and thought he would be fired on his first day.

In the first scene, Christopher is driving Tony.

The assignment was difficult because Imperioli had to drive backwards on the sidewalk while extras stood around him and he had to recite dialogues at the same time.

“And I couldn’t drive. I never had a driver’s license. I lived in New York City since I was a teenager, so I never got a driver’s license,” he said. “But I didn’t tell them that because I wanted the job… I thought, how hard can it be? It’s TV, they’ll probably tow you…”

He ended up accidentally crashing his car “really hard” into a tree, noting that it caused “a lot of damage.”

“The airbags went off and there was smoke,” he recalled. “I just thought they were going to get rid of me. People were running over me, there was silence … and then Jim burst out laughing hysterically,” he added, referring to Gandolfini.

According to Imperioli, Gandolfini’s laughter reduced his fear of being fired on the spot.

“I thought, ‘Okay, this is going to be okay.’ (Gandolfini) always liked it when the wheels fell off. When things went wrong and went wrong. He had a really great, silly sense of humor.”

“(He was a) really good guy,” Imperioli added. “It’s still heartbreaking that he’s gone. It always will be.”