It’s either the fact that Jamie’s been fortunate enough to have grown from adolescence to adulthood while portraying the daughter of one of America’s most popular television characters, or, it’s the fact that, even after such a success, she still remains grounded enough to take pause in her all-too-hectic, rarely-reflective, oft-egocentric, typically face-forward line of work called showbiz to realize just how fortunate she is to have gone along on the ride in the first place. Jamie-Lynn takes another - if not less critical - pause in her life, to talk openly about her upcoming projects, which leading actor she has a 'crush' on, and most importantly, life after Meadow Soprano. She’s not a daughter of the Italian Mob, she’s half Cuban, part Greek, with some Romanian too, and Jewish to boot, which, last time I checked, makes her all-American. She’s not from a largely Italian New Jersey neighborhood; rather, she’s from the largely white-collar Long Island town of Jericho, New York. We’re talking about Jamie-Lynn Sigler, not to be confused with Meadow Soprano, the character she’s played, gratefully I might add, on The Sopranos since before her junior year of high school.


Filming the final, yes, final episodes of The Sopranos (the final episodes premiere on HBO, starting April 8th at 9pm) Jamie-Lynn describes the feeling on the set: “With the show ending, it’s one of those things that we always knew was coming…we thought it was going to end a bunch of different times, but I think when it really hit us all was at our last cast read through.” She continues, “We sat down around the table…and at that last read through none of us could get up. Because getting up meant, really, closure…the last time we were all going to do this together. And we all sat there, looking around at each other, taking it in, there were tears…a good three or four minutes of silence where nobody could even say anything.”

And what might Jamie-Lynn have said if she could have found the words upon reading her final lines of a Sopranos’ script? Thank you, David Chase (creator of The Sopranos), for allowing me to work my acting chops all these years? Or, thank you HBO for allowing us to pull-off some really interesting, provocative and edgy television? Or, would it be: Thank you, Me, for working tirelessly on The Sopranos all-the-while graduating high school and battling through a serious eating disorder, for establishing the Jamie-Lynn Sigler Foundation and writing a book about her experience in order to help others who found themselves in her shoes, or for recording a pop music album as well as landing herself squarely in motion pictures, television movies and a guest starring role in the hit sitcom Will and Grace? Whatever she might have thought to herself, Jamie-Lynn has a lot to be thankful for. And what’s great is, she is thankful. “I don’t forget how lucky I am to be working in this business.”


I must agree that Jamie-Lynn has been lucky in her line of work, but with one (major) caveat: luck is not about happenstance, chance or good fortune. Instead, luck is the outcome of hard work - as one certain art teacher from Jericho High School liked to remind one of Jamie’s fellow Jericho High School alumni – yours truly. And Jamie-Lynn has, indeed, worked hard. When asked where she’ll be heading on vacation following years and years on The Sopranos and wrapping two feature films, Jamie-Lynn shoots back, “I’m the type of girl that likes to work and I want to keep busy. I don’t feel I’m in need of a vacation per se.” While Jamie-Lynn might be best known – for the moment – as Meadow Soprano, she’s beginning a new chapter in her acting career. I like to call it her P.M.P: Post-Meadow-Phase.

Relaxing for the moment on the west side of Manhattan, this “New Yorker-at-heart” has recently wrapped production on Homie Spumoni, a comedy co-starring Donald Faison and Whoopi Goldberg. “That was so much fun. [Homie Spumoni] was a film I did with Mike Cerrone, a first-time director who was so much fun…that set was about laughing and being crude and Mike being opened to anything and trusting him. It was a really fun time.” Jamie-Lynn shot the movie in Toronto while simultaneously working on The Sopranos in New York, “I would be flying back and forth a couple times a week.” Homie Spumoni is a twisted comedy about an African American, Renato, who has been raised by Italians his entire life, unaware he is black. “I play the young Jewish girl who he falls in love with.” Lucky Renato.


As if beefing up her IMDB credits were a fun game to pass the days, New York City Serenade is yet another film Jamie-Lynn has recently completed. “It’s about a relationship between two guys, long time friends, and how friendships grow out of one another. These two guys don’t have anything in common anymore, they don’t see eye to eye and I play Freddie Prinze Jr’s fiancée, he is engaged to me, but, he’s trying to keep up this friendship he has with Chris Klein’s character, and sometimes it can interfere.”

And Spumoni and Serenade are just the tip of Jamie-Lynn’s ‘P.M.P.’ iceberg. Being one of Hollywood’s most talented and recognized young actresses, Jamie gets offered her share of movie roles. She approaches projects as if she’s the mature, experienced, well-known entity whose ego won’t allow her to act like a...well, you’ll see what I mean: “The first time I read a script, I always read it as an audience as opposed to looking at it for a role right away. And then, I mean, I’m still inexperienced at all of this, so I’m still figuring it out, but I’ve noticed that projects that I respond to, I get a certain feeling. As I’m rereading it, and focusing on this character, if I’m really responding to it, I can almost envision myself doing it. And there’s many times when I just can’t and I know I’m not right for it.”


Grounded, focused, hardworking, eager, Jamie-Lynn’s P.M.P. will certainly flourish, be it on television, “If it’s a character I fall in love with and enjoy playing for a long time, absolutely,” or on the big screen, “I love period movies…from the early 1900s to a WWII film…” Jamie-Lynn’s star has not even begun to soar. When asked what leading men she’d like to share screen time with in the future Jamie-Lynn doesn’t hesitate: “I have a major crush on Steve Carell. Hysterical. He could read me the phone book and I would laugh.” And that’s a great catch, or match, for Jamie-Lynn as she likes to remind fans that her off-screen persona is really nothing like that of stoic Meadow: “I have a sense of humor. A lot of people that just know me as Meadow assume I’m a certain type of person, and sometimes when they meet me they say, ‘Wow, I didn’t think you could be funny.’ (chuckles).” This is, after all, a woman who, years B.M.P. (Before Meadow Phase) sat at home and laughed at Al Bundy’s antics, “When I was young, (chuckles, maybe admitting too much) I loved Married With Children.” A woman who knows how to value her family, Jamie-Lynn would watch television with her two older brothers.

In Jamie-Lynn’s free time, and by free time I mean the time spent between photo shoots, auditions, and shooting television shows and films, Jamie enjoys spending time in her sweats around the house. Surprisingly, this young, down-to-earth television star admits an embarrassing addiction: “I’m obsessed…with this game on the computer...Text Twist. It’s sad how much I play it. Just me, myself and I. I’ll be in bed with my laptop and my boyfriend will come over and say, ‘You’re still playing?!’ For hours. I’m not even kidding.” A true New Yorker, Jamie-Lynn enjoys walks around the city. “Exploring, there’s always new places you can find in the city.” She gets together with her mother Connie, father Steve, and brothers Brian and Adam very often. “That’s why I love being here in New York.” And, as if hours upon hours of word games weren’t enough, Jamie-Lynn also crochets. Yes, crochets. “I learned it when I was on Beauty and the Beast,” (the national tour), “my friend Jessica taught me how. I can really only make things that are straight…like blankets. I’m not good with turns and curves yet…I make a mean scarf.”


Nobody knows where Jamie-Lynn will end up next, let alone years into her P.M.P. I have an inkling it will be in a really special place. Today, she’s interested in a new drama pilot that has yet to be picked-up and made into a series. Tomorrow, she’ll be filming the final scenes that will truly begin her P.M.P. The day after that…I guess which ever direction the straight, with-no-turns-or-curves scarf might blow her in. And that’s just fine for this talented, fortunate, but not lucky, young actress.