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Actress Sarah Shahi, who appeared in The Sopranos episode “Kennedy and Heidi,” raved about her experience filming romantic scenes with late series star James Gandolfini. Shahi has spent recent years starring on the Hulu series Paradise.
During a recent podcast interview, Sarah Shahi — who played Sonya Aragon, an exotic dancer and college student who hooks up with Tony Soprano while he’s visiting Las Vegas, in The Sopranos Season 6 episode “Kennedy and Heidi” — glowingly recalled filming a sex scene with Tony Soprano actor James Gandolfini.
The episode was famous for Tony Soprano taking hallucinogenics and experiencing a spiritual awakening in the desert following the death of his nephew.
Former The Sopranos actress Sarah Shahi raved about her experience making out with James Gandolfini
“I did a sex scene with Tony Soprano. One of the best, I have to say, kisses I’ve ever had,” Shahi said on The Bossticks podcast.
“We had this scene where he was so hot and … I remember thinking to myself, ‘How am I going to get turned on by this 47-year-old large, balding man?’ There’s nothing … how is this going to work for me? Oh boy, did it work for me!” she continued.
“There’s a scene where I’m sitting on his lap and we’re taking these mushrooms and then we have to kiss and when they called ‘cut,’ we were still kissing … we were still kissing. Like, and we did it three, four times and every time they would call ‘cut’ and we’re still f—— making out.”
Actress Sarah Shahi couldn’t stop talking about filming s*x scenes with James Gandolfini on The Sopranos, saying they were so intense that they kept redoing kissing scenes and were still kissing even after “cut” was called 😳🎥👀🔥
“One of the best kisses I’ve ever had.. he was… pic.twitter.com/npFCk0DvAK
— Killa 🌺 (@KillaKreww) June 21, 2026
After her appearance in The Sopranos, Shahi has gone on to forge a successful acting career, as she’s starred as Kate Reed in the USA Network legal drama Fairly Legal (2011–2012), Sameen Shaw on the CBS crime drama Person of Interest (2012–2016), Billie on the Netflix series Sex/Life (2021–2023), and Dr. Gabriela Torabi in Hulu thriller series Paradise.