Before Nickelodeon, Josh Peck Was A Small Part Of HBO History

In a recent episode of his Good Guys podcast, Nickelodeon alum Josh Peck revealed a surprising fun fact: before "Drake & Josh," before "The Amanda Show" even, Josh Peck got one of his first-ever TV roles on "The Sopranos." Well, sort of.

"If you squint really, really, really, really close, I am a background actor in the pilot of 'The Sopranos' at AJ's birthday," Peck said. "I was on set for the pilot. I was like, 'What is this show about a choir?' You probably can't even see me, I think you see my shoulder. ... I was there with Paulie Walnuts eating lunch."

After hearing this news, I went back to the "Sopranos" pilot with my magnifying glass in hand and I scanned every inch of that AJ's birthday scene. And I'll be honest: I can't find young Josh Peck. There was a moment where I thought I found him, spotting a red shirt in the background, but on further inspection, it's clear that the red shirt kid was actually just the back of AJ's (Robert Iler) head. 

You can find other kid actors in the background, but none of them look much like Josh Peck. This is complicated by the fact that the pilot was filmed in 1997, a few years before Josh Peck got his first major on-screen acting gig. Most people aren't that familiar with what Josh Peck looked like in 1997, although the actor has shared some early childhood photos over the years that give us some idea of what to look for. 

I welcome other viewers to check the pilot out again and see if they can spot Peck in the background. But as for now, it seems like Peck's first role on a major TV series was tragically cut in the edit. 

The cutting of Peck was tragic because if his face had been visible for even a second, he would've joined the ranks of Lady Gaga, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Cristin Milioti. All three of those actors stopped by briefly before they were famous, in scenes that are now best known for their inclusion. Lady Gaga and LMM's moments were very brief, with Gaga especially being hard to recognize, but Milioti stands out for actually being a character. She's Catherine Sacrimoni, Johnny Sack's daughter. She doesn't do much, but she does snap at one point and yell at her family for only ever thinking about food. The show never elaborates on Catherine, but that one little line implies a thought-out history to her character that the other celebrity appearances never had. 

In that same podcast conversation, Peck joked about how he totally could've played the role of AJ Soprano. "I was like 10. I guess it was 9 or 10," Peck said, only two years younger than Robert Iler was at the time. "That would have been great."

Luckily, Josh Peck still had plenty of acting opportunities after "The Sopranos" did him dirty. The same year season 2 of "The Sopranos" came out, Peck had become a regular cast member of "The Amanda Show." By the time "The Sopranos" season 5 was airing, Peck was starring as a foul-mouthed bully in the dark drama "Mean Creek." Most fans consider "Drake & Josh" to be his standout role, but his "Mean Creek" performance was when we understood the dude could handle serious, intense material. The haters may doubt that Peck could've pulled off an angsty character like AJ, but "Mean Creek" proved he totally could.