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Joe Pantoliano has three secret weapons when it comes to protecting his mental and physical health.
The Emmy award-winning actor, who starred as Ralph “Ralphie” Cifaretto in 21 episodes of the HBO drama “The Sopranos,” told Page Six his tried and true recipe for optimal health while chatting at the 30-year “Bound” anniversary during the Tribeca Film Festival.
“You need three things — masturbation, medication and meditation,” Pantoliano confessed.
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Joe Pantoliano revealed the three components he focuses on for peak mental health. (Gilbert Flores)
Pantoliano further indulged and said while he doesn’t meditate, he does take a “wonderful supplement,” and “my wife [Nancy Sheppard] takes care of [the masturbation].”
“You need three things — masturbation, medication and meditation.”
The couple married in 1994 and share four children together.
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In lieu of medication, Pantoliano followed doctor’s orders by stepping outside for a casual walk every day.
Joe Pantoliano and wife Nancy Sheppard have been married for 32 years. (Joy Malone)
“When I went to McLean Hospital, the brain hospital, they told me that a brisk 15-minute walk is equivalent to like 90 milligrams of Prozac, so I walk every day,” he told the outlet.
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The “Bad Boys” star also discussed his history with addiction, and noted that “success” was once a vice before explaining “then sex and then alcohol.”
“Finding things that make this feeling go away,” he said. “I thought if I could become successful, then this feeling that was in the pit of my soul would go away.”
Joe Pantoliano, Edie Falco and James Gandolfini smile together at a New York event for TNT’s ‘Come Together.’ (Getty Images)
Pantoliano said that he instead “crashed and burned, didn’t die, and I guess discovered my shortcomings; they weren’t terrible defects, they were, you know, just mental illness.”
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The “Matrix” actor has been candid about his struggles with depression and addiction over the years.
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“You find something that fills the void — masturbation, meditation — it doesn’t matter. You have a drink and you go, ‘Ah, this is the feeling I’ve been looking for.’ You’re trying to fill it,” he told Page Six in 2020.
Joe Pantoliano earned an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for “The Sopranos” in 2003. (Chris Weeks/FilmMagic)
His own challenges with depression inspired Pantoliano to establish the mental health awareness charity No Kidding, Me Too!
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At the time, Pantoliano admitted he admired Prince Harry for being a vocal advocate on a difficult subject.
“If you think about William and Harry and what they went through,” he noted, “the trauma of what happened to them, in a culture that’s saying ‘stiff upper lip’ — it doesn’t work that way.”