Watch: Lorraine Bracco: From Goodfellas to Dr. Melfi

Lorraine Bracco is the only actor who stands at the center of both of the greatest mob stories ever filmed: she narrated Goodfellas as Karen Hill, then spent a decade as the woman listening to Tony Soprano. Watch the video above, then read her double legacy.

Bracco's two roles bookend the genre: in Goodfellas she is inside the life, seduced by it, narrating the cocaine spiral from the marriage's front seat; in The Sopranos she is outside it, the professional in the chair, watching the same sickness from the safe side of a desk and getting pulled toward it anyway. Chase originally wanted her for Carmela. Her choice of Melfi gave the series its moral instrument, the one character whose job is to say what the audience is thinking, and to fail, season by season, at saving a man who enjoys being unsaved.

Quick answer: Bracco went from Goodfellas' Karen Hill, the wife inside the life, to Dr. Melfi, the therapist outside it, defining both ends of the mob genre.

Keep reading: Was Goodfellas’ “Funny How?” Scene Really Improvised? · Why Dr. Melfi Says “No” in The Sopranos’ Darkest Test

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