Sopranos star digitally recreated

Nancy Marchand - understood her role "perfectly"

Mob drama The Sopranos is to incorporate a digital recreation of actress Nancy Marchand, who died last year, in its forthcoming series.

Nancy Marchand played the manipulative matriarch Livia Marchand in the US series and also starred as Mrs Pynchon in 1970s newspaper drama Lou Grant.

James Gandolfini plays Livia Soprano's son Tony

Sopranos creator David Chase told the New York Times video technology provided the only way to explain the sudden disappearance of such a pivotal character.

They tried to match the recreation with Marchand's acclaimed performances in the New Jersey-based show.

"We tried to use her basic repertoire," Chase said.

"She had these riffs that she would use over and over again.

"And that's the footage we used."

Armed with video technology Chase said he and his editors transposed filmed sequences of Marchand from the series' past years, including outtakes, and Chase wrote new scenes incorporating these bits of dialogue.

Sopranos actress Edie Falco is nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award

Since Livia Soprano tended to repeat stock phrases constantly and rave about her perceived mistreatment by her son Tony, this technique works.

Similar problems arose when Oliver Reed died during the filming of Gladiator.

Reed played Proximo, the teacher of Russell Crowe's character Maximus.

In that case they also used out-take scenes and digitally restored and matched them for scenes later in the film.

He recieved a posthumous best supporting actor Bafta nomination for the part earlier this year.

The third series of The Sopranos, which appears on Channel 4 in the UK, is due to begin on the HBO network on Sunday.