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sarah shahi
Sarah Shahi may have only appeared in one episode of The Sopranos, but she made a lasting impression thanks to a memorable hookup with Tony Soprano himself (James Gandolfini) in Season 6 of the HBO drama. As Sonya Aragon, Shahi played Christopher’s (Michael Imperioli) mistress, a carefree college student who was “stripping her way through” school. And while she had a quick, steamy character arc before disappearing from the series forever, her adventures onscreen are far from over.
Now, Shahi is back in another raunchy role over a decade after her Sopranos stint. This time, she’s playing a suburban mother reliving her wild younger days in Sex/Life, her new Netflix series that premieres on the streamer today.
But if you need a refresher before diving into her latest show, here’s a recap on Shahi’s Sopranos bit on the episode “Kennedy and Heidi”: After Chris’ death, Tony comes to pay Sonya a visit in Las Vegas to let her know Chris passed in a car accident. After some flirting — with Tony telling her, “You’re more beautiful than [Chris] let on” — we fast-forward to Tony and Sonya in bed, where they share a joint after hooking up.
After offering Tony some top-notch weed, the two move on to a more experimental drug, popping some peyote before making out on Sonya’s couch. Following a wild, drug-fueled night with Tony at a casino, her character disappeared, but Shahi never went away.
The episode aired back in 2007, and Shahi has come a long way since then, appearing in The L Word, Person of Interest and Chicago Fire, before leading her very own Netflix series. Now that you’re all caught up, it’s time to move on to Shahi’s latest, Sex/Life. The actor stars as Billie Connelly, a bored housewife dissatisfied with her investment banker husband, Cooper Connelly (Mike Vogel), and their unremarkable sex life, which she’ll readily admit “sucks.”
Looking for some spark of excitement in her dull, everyday life, Billie begins to keep a journal detailing the sex exploits of her past, focusing on her hottest moments with her ex, Brad Simon (Adam Demos). But it’s not long before her fantasies escape the pages of her journal for reality when Brad unexpectedly re-enters her life, re-igniting her feelings for him and sparking a love triangle between herself, Brad and Cooper, who is more intrigued than angered when he discovers her steamy journal.
“I never had the wild experiences you did,” Cooper tells her. “I want to have them with you.” And so begins Billie’s balancing act of rekindling her romance with her vanilla husband while toeing the line with her bad boy, toxic ex.
But don’t mistake Sex/Life for just another soapy drama — the series promises to deliver plenty of racy content, with “a lot of sex” and “a lot of bodies,” per TV Insider. Shahi told the outlet she was pulled in by the script, which she described as “sexy as hell.” She added, “Not only did I want to be a part of this because there was a lot of sex in it, but [because] there was a lot of sex told from the female point of view, which I thought was really important.”
While her Sopranos scene was undoubtedly told through Tony’s POV, Shahi promises Sex/Life is all about the female gaze. In a separate interview with TV Line, she said, “A lot of times, when we have shows or movies that are very sexual, it’s still told through the male lens, but now we have something that’s the female point of view.”
Specifically, Shahi said the show isn’t afraid to sexualize its male stars, sometimes focusing longer on their bodies than her own. “It’s about time,” Shahi said, adding, “Also, it was important to depict that women can get off in other positions.”
Curious to see more of Shahi’s new show? Sex/Life premiered on Netflix today. Watch the trailer for the steamy new series in the video above.
