Quick Facts
| Full Name | Laura Lemos Schirripa |
| Heritage | Mexican-American |
| Raised In | Las Vegas, Nevada |
| Married | 22 April 1989 |
| Husband | Actor Steve Schirripa |
| NYC Marathons | 13 completed |
| Half Marathons | 41+ across New York, Las Vegas, California and Australia |
| Daughters | Bria Schirripa Buccarelli, Ciara Schirripa Binder |
| Currently Based | New York City and Westerly, Rhode Island |
Laura Schirripa is the wife of actor Steve Schirripa, known to television audiences as Bobby Baccalieri in HBO’s The Sopranos. She grew up in Las Vegas, is of Mexican-American heritage, and has completed 13 New York City Marathons. She is also the reason her husband took the audition that defined his career.
That audition cost $24,000 out of their own pocket. Laura told him to go.
Table of Contents
Laura Schirripa and Steve: From Las Vegas to a 37-Year Marriage
Born Laura Lemos into a Mexican-American family, she was raised in Las Vegas. Steve Schirripa had arrived in the city from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, after college, eventually working his way up to entertainment director at the Riviera Hotel and Casino. The two met in the mid-1980s, spent roughly four years together before marrying, and wed on 22 April 1989 in a private ceremony with close friends and family.
As of March 2026, they have been married for nearly 37 years.
She holds no personal social media accounts and has given almost no public interviews across that time. On his Facebook page, Steve has called her “my incredible wife and sidekick of 40 years.” The only extended record of her own voice is a conversation published in October 2025 on her daughter Bria’s Substack newsletter, The Side Dish.
The Sopranos Audition and the $24,000 Decision
In 1999, Steve received a call-back to audition for a part in The Sopranos. The catch was practical: he would have to cover his own flights and hotel. The total came to $24,000.
He was not sure it made sense. Laura was.
In a 2025 interview with the Westerly Sun, Steve recalled the moment plainly. “It cost me twenty-four thousand dollars,” he said. “But I got the job.”
The job was Bobby Baccalieri. What followed was five seasons of The Sopranos, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a long run on Blue Bloods as Detective Anthony Abetemarco, a New York Times bestselling book and Talking Sopranos, a podcast with Michael Imperioli that passed five million downloads.
That career traces back to a decision made by a couple in Las Vegas who were not yet sure any of it would work.
Laura Schirripa’s Marathon Record: 13 Races and What Drives Her
She started running at 13, competing in cross-country for her Las Vegas junior high school. After school she kept at it on her own, running recreationally for decades and continuing through both pregnancies, stopping only around seven months in. The organised race chapter opened in 2003, the year she turned 40, with the MORE Women’s Half Marathon in Central Park. From that first start line, she has not stopped.
The record, as of November 2025:
- 13 TCS New York City Marathons completed
- 41 half marathons run across New York, Las Vegas, California and Australia
- First NYC Marathon finish time: 4 hours and 9 minutes
- Year-round training, with a minimum of 13.1 miles run every month
Her preparation in race week follows a fixed pattern. Every Thursday before the marathon, she and Steve go to the Expo at the Javits Center. He picks out the merchandise, usually a mug, sweatpants and a jacket, while she collects her bib. The Saturday dinner before race day does not change: broccoli, salmon and pasta.
Training playlist: The Rolling Stones, The Killers and Bad Bunny.
On race day she carries Airpods but rarely needs them. As she told Bria in the October 2025 interview: “My husband, who is my biggest fan, [is] at the finish line every year.”
The 2015 Race: A Marathon Dedicated to Her Mother
Of the 13 starts, the 2015 New York City Marathon carries the most weight.
Earlier that year, Laura’s mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Laura spent eight months as her primary carer. When her mother died, November’s marathon became a tribute run.
She spoke about it directly in the 2025 Substack interview. “Running got me through the eight months of taking care of my mother after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer,” she said. “It provided an outlet during a difficult time and taught me that I should not run away from my problems but rather that running is the best thing you can do to alleviate anxiety and pain.”
She ran 2015 in her mother’s honour. “Training and taking care of yourself is a complete commitment,” she said in the same interview. “But the outcome of crossing the finish line is beyond words.”
Her advice to anyone who thinks the distance is beyond them: “When people say to me ‘I could never do that’ my answer is that if you want to do something, then you can. You can put your mind to anything that you choose to.”
Bria and Ciara: Two Daughters, Two Weddings
Laura and Steve have two daughters. Both are married and settled in New York City.
Bria Schirripa Buccarelli, born around 1991, met her husband Michael Buccarelli in March 2016 when the two were assigned to side-by-side cubicles at First Data Corporation in Jersey City. Months of shared lunches and long walks followed before he asked her out in October 2016. Their first date was a drink in Manhattan’s West Village, then dinner. Bria later described it as “a very sweet moment.” By July 2019, Michael proposed at Christopher Street Pier, directly across the Hudson River from the building where they first met.
Their wedding had been planned as a 200-guest event in New Jersey in November 2020. The pandemic ended that. On 30 April 2021, they married at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Brooklyn, with 14 guests, followed by a reception dinner at Da Nico Ristorante on Mulberry Street in Manhattan’s Little Italy. A small band played and Bria’s favourite dish, rigatoni vodka, was on the menu. The New York Times covered the wedding in its Styles section, naming Laura directly as Bria’s parent. Bria works in financial services and runs the Substack newsletter The Side Dish.
Ciara Schirripa Binder, born around 1995, married Zachary Binder on 8 October 2023 at Tribeca Grill in New York City. She and Zach met at the University of Delaware in 2014 and got engaged in 2022. At the reception, a five-piece mariachi group performed as a tribute to Laura’s Mexican-American heritage. People magazine covered the day exclusively. Steve told the publication: “It was just one big party, and it was very emotional, of course, because it’s my youngest daughter. Now we’re real empty-nesters, me and my wife Laura.”
Ciara works as a school counsellor.
Steve’s 2013 book Big Daddy’s Rules: Raising Daughters Is Tougher Than I Look, published by Simon and Schuster and a New York Times bestseller, was built around how he and Laura raised Bria and Ciara together. The Apple Books synopsis notes Steve “getting trained by wife Laura” as a thread running through the whole book.
A Charity Record That Goes Largely Unnoticed
Getty Images event archives place Laura at a consistent run of charitable appearances across two decades. In 2005, she attended the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Kids for Kids Carnival alongside a young Bria and Ciara. She and Steve appeared at the Food Bank for New York City’s Can-Do Awards at Pier 60 in both 2007 and 2009. From 2015 through 2017, she was at the Keep Memory Alive Power of Love Gala at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas for three consecutive years, raising funds for the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.
According to the Look to the Stars charity profile for Steve Schirripa, his charitable ties span multiple organisations over many years. Laura appears in the record throughout.
Westerly, Rhode Island and Willie Boy
As of April 2025, the Schirripas have a third base. Steve confirmed to the Westerly Sun that he and Laura had bought a house in Westerly, Rhode Island, intended as a gathering point for the whole family: Bria and Michael, Ciara and Zach, and the couple’s smooth-red Dachshund, Willie. “I love it here,” Steve told the paper. “And my wife loves it here, too. We all love Westerly.”
Willie, whose Instagram account @willietheweenieofwallstreet has passed 20,000 followers, holds a Blue Bloods screen credit and appeared on stage at Westerly’s 2025 SoupyFest. Steve’s take on his character: “Willie does what Willie wants.”
What the Record Actually Shows
She spent her childhood running cross-country in Las Vegas, decades before anyone outside her family knew her name. She has since run 13 New York City Marathons, 41 half marathons across four countries, raised two daughters from Las Vegas to New York, attended charity galas across three decades without seeking a single press line from any of them, and held together a household while her husband’s career moved from a casino hotel in Nevada to one of the most talked-about television shows in American history.
She has no social media presence. No interviews on record beyond the one her daughter published in October 2025. No public profile of any kind beyond the red carpet appearances she has made standing beside Steve.
What there is on the record is specific and verifiable. The $24,000 she told him to spend is on record in the Westerly Sun. The 2015 marathon dedicated to her mother is in her own words on her daughter’s Substack. The Bria and Ciara weddings are in the New York Times and People magazine respectively. The charity appearances are in the Getty Images archive.
The audition she told Steve to take became The Sopranos. Most people know the show. Fewer know who told him to get on the plane.
