Corrado "Junior" Soprano

Junior is Tony's uncle, an aging capo who's just been handed nominal leadership of the family as a shield for the man really running things. Proud, prickly, and convinced he's owed more respect than he gets, he nurses old grudges and insists on the dignity of his title even as it becomes clear how little real power comes with it.

Dominic Chianese plays wounded vanity with such precision that Junior becomes funny and pitiable in the same breath — a man performing authority he no longer fully holds. The show uses him to ask what's left of a mobster once the myth of respect curdles into pettiness, and Chianese never lets you stop caring.