US gangster drama series bites the bullet in final season

Gangster drama Boardwalk Empire is chock-full of less-than-holy characters committing murderous and deceitful acts. That's a big part of the appeal of the long-running HBO series, which is set mainly in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the 1920s, a time when the US government had outlawed the sale of alcohol.

No surprises there. After all, murder and dishonest behaviour didn't hurt the popularity of The Godfather's Michael Corleone, or the Sopranos. Interesting, then, to discover that the real-life gangsters who are portrayed in the show didn't think of themselves as evil. Just the opposite, in fact.

"Lucky thinks he is heroic, a real hero," says Vincent Piazza, who plays Lucky Luciano, the real-life Sicilian-born gangster who is considered to be the most powerful mob boss of all time. "In the literature I read about him, he envisioned himself as everybody's friend, and he would say as much: 'Why would anyone want to kill me? Everybody loves me.' He lived in a strange mental place, that's for sure."

Luciano's partner in crime, Meyer Lansky, a cool and calculating villain with a smattering of gentlemanly culture, had a similarly distorted perception of himself. "He never thought of himself as a villain," says British actor Anatol Yusef, who plays Lansky, a Jew.

"He saw himself as a guardian of the oppressed. Lansky came to New York at the age of nine, and saw Jews being axed to death on the incredibly violent streets. He intended to survive those streets, and make his way in life. He lived in a world surrounded by people trying to attain money, status and power in the same way as him, so he didn't think he was doing anything wrong."