Tomorrow, Australian fans of The Sopranos get to see the show's controversial conclusion, four months after it aired in the US. In interviews before that finale, the cast admitted they would never find roles as good again and expressed their thanks to David Chase, the show's creator, and to James Gandolfini, who gave the world Tony Soprano.

Gandolfini, however, expressed neither regret nor reservations about walking away from the show. "Obviously this changed my life," he said. "But I've separated. I'm relieved."

Steven R. Schirripa, who played Bobby Baccalieri, recalled seeing Gandolfini after filming had ended and "he looked like someone who'd had a piano lifted off his back".

Gandolfini took his leadership on the show seriously, most notably after a fractious salary dispute at the start of season five caused HBO to shut down production. When he returned to the set, Gandolfini called selected colleagues to his trailer and presented them with cheques for tens of thousands of dollars.

Of his television wife, played by Edie Falco, Gandolfini said: "Edie is kind of a force of nature. When we'd have a scene and she'd get angry, I could feel sheepish." For her part, Falco was in denial about the show's demise. "We've taken many breaks," she said. "So I can still fool myself that this is just another break."

Michael Imperioli, who played Christopher Moltisanti, wrote five scripts for the series, which gave him an edge among the actors. "There was always a lot of fear," Imperioli said. "People wanted to know about being killed. I kept pretending I didn't know." But he did. "I knew I was getting killed a year before."

Imperioli was central to one of the show's most talked about episodes, season three's Pine Barrens. In it he and Paulie (Tony Sirico) got lost in a snow-filled forest after trying to whack a Russian mobster. "That episode was like a little one-act play," Imperioli said. "Like a different version of Waiting for Godot."

Sirico agreed: "God put his finger on that one." Ever since that episode, viewers have been waiting for the mobster to return, ready for revenge. But he never has. "This show was never what people expected," Imperioli said.

This final season saw Tony's shrink, Dr Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), finally question her role in his life. Bracco said that Jennifer's diagnosis of Tony as a sociopath was on target. "I think if Hitler had come in, she would have tried to make him come around," Bracco said. "I do believe she made Tony a better husband."

For Bracco, the highlights were the scenes she shared with Gandolfini. "I got to play with Muhammad Ali. I really got James at his finest."

The New York Times

The final episode of The Sopranos airs on Nine tomorrow at 10.45pm.