Happy Birthday Tony Soprano! I Had an Astrologer Do Your Birth Chart

The other day while rewatching The Sopranos for the sixth time, I spotted something I hadn’t seen before. In the Season Three episode “Another Toothpick,” Tony gets pulled over by an uptight traffic cop who stops him for speeding, and, unwilling to look the other way, demands to see his license and registration. It was then that I saw it: Tony’s birthday: August 22, 1959. If you’re thinking, “That’s today!” you’re right. He would be 62.

So, in honor of this loving father, vicious mob boss and adoring horse girl (male), I mapped out his natal chart and brought it to an astrologer to see if he could tell me how well Mr. Soprano’s cosmic alignments match up to his behavior, life and sense of self.

Marval A Rex is an “evolutionary astrologer” and artist who uses birth charts — a snapshot of where all the planets and stars were at the moment of your birth — to help them navigate life’s perpetual changes. Birth charts can reveal a lot about your personality, relationships and how you move through the world, which, in this case, is as a self-described “fat fucking crook” from New Jersey.

Let’s start with Tony’s sun sign. The sun is the core of your personality. It describes your most basic level of identity, and shows what drives you. Tony, born August 22nd, is at the very cusp of Leo, almost in Virgo territory. Leos are a fire sign known for positive traits like confidence, ambition and conviviality. Negative traits include stubbornness, possessiveness and narcissism. All of this tracks pretty perfectly with his position at the top of his crime organization, his inability to change despite years of therapy and his unabiding love for animals. After all, Leos are all about getting attention and affection, and who can make you feel more loved than a pool full of ducks?

But if the sun represents someone’s personality, the moon sign reflects their inner mentality. Tony’s moon is in Aries. “First and foremost, when I look at mental health, I look at someone’s moon sign,” says Rex. “Tony’s moon is in Aries, a generally challenging moon placement as Aries is a masculine sign that’s ruled by the warrior planet Mars. Having a moon in Aries typically means someone is really warlike in their emotions, and they tend to only display them when alone or in private. This is someone who has a non-stop neurotic mind that is over-analyzing his childish emotional ways.” As an Aries moon myself, ouch.

However, because Tony’s Big Leo Energy is supported by his Aries moon and vice versa, he functions particularly well as a mob leader. “Guys like him have to make snap decisions, especially when people’s lives are on the line, and an Aries moon can make those cutthroat choices with ease,” says Rex. Translation: An Aries moon can absolutely send someone to sleep with the fishes. Overall, though, his Aries moon is both a blessing and a curse — it helps him make quick decisions, but sometimes, “an impulsive response can fuck everything up.”

Astrology’s big three signs that tell the most about you are the sun, the moon and the ascendant (also known as the rising). The rising sign can only be found if you know what time of day you were born and has a lot to do with how people see you and what you project out into the world. I reached out to The Sopranos creator David Chase to find out Tony’s birth time, but he refused to comment. Due to this withheld information, I can only assume Tony’s rising sign is essential to understand the show’s controversially abrupt ending.

Still, we can tell a lot about Tony from the planets we can see. Of particular interest is Tony’s dual stelliums in Virgo and Leo. According to Rex, a stellium occurs when three or more planets are in a single astrological sign.

Of particular note is Tony’s Virgo placements in Venus and Mars. Venus is the divine lover that dictates love languages and how you attract things and people into your life. Mars is the god of war that dictates how we go about things and accomplish tasks. With the meticulous and perfectionist Virgo in those spots, Tony puts the highest expectations of masculinity on himself and every other guy around him, trying to perfect the balance of being a caring friend, husband and father while also needing everyone to respect him as a ruthlessly violent man. It’s no wonder he keeps having panic attacks.

When that abundance of Virgo mixes with all the Leo in Tony’s chart, you may not have the makings of a varsity athlete, but you’ve got the recipe for a neurotic Italian torn between traditions of machismo and his need to be nurtured.

“This is definitely a leadership chart with all that Leo energy,” says Rex. “His brain can focus on all the small details (Virgo energy) and keep all the essential ducks in a row. He’s a double threat in a sense: He has the irresistible energy and charisma of a strong Leo with the energetic tools of a Virgo stellium that’s often like a supercomputer — it files and organizes everything. The Aries moon adds a bit of chaotic or ‘spicy’ energy to his chart in that it could absolutely fight his Virgo tendency for taking proper steps. Aries invites him to make impulsive decisions based on an overly emotional and childish response to problems in his career. Talk about a hair-trigger temper!”

When I ask Rex what advice he might have for Mr. Soprano based on his natal chart, he took particular note of Tony’s Aries moon. “Aries is the baby of the zodiac, and when you have a big baby inside a man’s body, that can be a very dangerous thing,” he tells me. “I tell all my clients with that placement: Process your emotions immediately. Remove yourself from the situation as soon as possible so as to cause minimum damage.”

Either way, I wish you a buona fortuna, Anthony Soprano. May your jubilation be full of twirling sausages, baked ziti and no planets being in retrograde.

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Chingy Nea

Chingy Nea is a writer, comedian and critically acclaimed ex-girlfriend based out of L.A. and Oakland.