The End of BOARDWALK EMPIRE with Terence Winter

‘Boardwalk Empire‘ creator Terence Winter previews the hit HBO drama’s final Season 5 and discusses the recent controversy surrounding comments by ‘The Sopranos’ creator David Chase about the series ending of that iconic mob series, which he was writing for at the time.

Chase spurred a media frenzy by suggesting that the show’s main character Tony Soprano was still alive, but then gave a statement through his publicist attempting to add context and clarification to his reported statement.

Chase had previously said about the series’ ambiguous ending that he believed whether Tony Soprano was alive or dead was not the point. He explained that the final scene of ‘The Sopranos’ raised a spiritual question that has no right or wrong answer.

Winter is asked what viewers can expect at the end of ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ whether he is once again going to leave the audience with an ambiguous ending that people will be debating for years to come.

“I would say that it is fairly unambiguous,” he replied. “Whether or not it leaves you with a question or not I can’t tell. From my perspective, I think it’s pretty straightforward and I hope very satisfying for the audience.”

Regarding the Tony Soprano controversy as well as the ambiguity of whether Bryan Cranston’s ‘Breaking Bad’ character Walter White actually died or not in that series finale, Winter responded with a smile: “How do you define dead? That’s very subjective.”

He also provided his own feelings on Chase’s recent statements on Tony Soprano. “From what I understand he feels that his response was misconstrued. From my perspective – first of all I thought the ending was terrific the first time David actually pitched it to me – and Matt Weiner, your brother, we both thought it was a great idea. I thought it was executed incredibly well.”

He added: “What I always took away from it was whether or not Tony was killed or not killed that night, it was almost beside the point. The whole idea was that at some point in his life, whether it was that night or another night, somebody’s going to come out of a men’s room and probably kill this guy. People in Tony’s line of work don’t seem to die in hospitals very often. You know as Tony himself said, you end up dead or in the can.”

There is a similar sentiment in ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ with constant speculation about which characters will live and which will die.

Winter reveals that the show’s final season fast-forwards to the year 1931 as prohibition is coming to an end in the United States. “Ultimately what this is, is the story of ‘Nucky’ Thompson (portrayed by Steve Buscemi), and his story is really what’s most important. His story came to a conclusion for us and it happened to be 1931.”

When asked to name the favorite character he ever killed off, Winter responded, “It’s hard, sometimes you get very attached to these characters.” He said there was an agreement among writers on ‘The Sopranos’ that they wouldn’t refrain from killing a character off just because they liked the actor playing the role.

“You know you had to really divorce yourself from the real person and the fictional character – if it was right for the story, then that person had to go.”

Creatively speaking, he gave some of his top series kills. “Adriana (Drea de Matteo) was really very powerful, emotionally. I felt very honored to have written that episode and yet it was really hard to write.”

He added that he later realized that the reason he wrote the scene the way he did (with the character crawling off camera and then gunshots ringing out) was so that he and the audience wouldn’t actually have to see her die since she was a very popular character.

“I was also very proud of the ‘Boardwalk Empire’ episode where Nucky kills Jimmy Darmody because it was such a huge moment for our protagonists and also people were so shocked by it. And it made me happy that I was able to surprise the audience. It’s very rare that you can do anything that’s surprising in TV.”

Winter is asked to comment on where the television landscape is right now and where he sees it going in the future.

“It’s just a great time for entertainment, it’s a great time to be in this business and the bar is set so high. It terms of where it’s going, you’ve got me – I haven’t really given it a lot of thought. And it’s one of those things where something just seems to sneak up on you.”

He did say there’s “a ton of stuff” out that he personally likes to watch, among them ‘Mad Men,’ “Breaking Bad’ and the new show ‘Manhattan,’ about the Manhattan Project, about the building of the first atomic bomb.

During the discussion, Winter also talks about teaming up once again with director Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger for a new HBO project focused on rock ‘n roll in the 1970s, as well as a potential biopic on boxing legend Mike Tyson.