David Chase has once again tried to distance himself from the assertion that Tony Soprano did not die in the series finale of The Sopranos.

David Chase On 'Sopranos' Ending

Chase was quoted last month, confirming what roughly half of Sopranos fans believed to be true – that Tony Soprano did not die in the Sopranos' final scene. When asked if Tony died in that diner scene, Chase apparently shook his head "no," and further clarified by saying, "No, he isn't," during a chat with Vox writer Martha Nochimson.

Not long after the story was published, Chase issued a statement through his rep Leslee Dart to pivot away from the suggestion that Tony unequivocally survived the dinner scene.

"A journalist for Vox misconstrued what David Chase said in their interview. To simply quote David as saying, 'Tony Soprano is not dead,' is inaccurate. There is a much larger context for that statement and as such, it is not true," the statement read. "As David Chase has said numerous times on the record, 'Whether Tony Soprano is alive or dead is not the point.' To continue to search for this answer is fruitless. The final scene of The Sopranos raises a spiritual question that has no right or wrong answer."

When pressed on the issue of Tony's fate again recently, Chase elaborated on what happened in the chat with Nochimson that led to her story being published. While he's not holding hard feelings against the journalist, he does see the friendship he had with her as something of a cautionary tale.

"This has taught me, for good and all, not to befriend any journalist. I got too friendly with her. And I kept saying to her, 'You know, this can’t be good that you and I talk to each other and have lunch and coffee. Something’s wrong here,' and she’d say, 'No, no, no.' And she meant that—she wasn’t setting me up," Chase told the Daily Beast. "It seems like, poor Dave, there’s no way he can win. I don’t recall that conversation. I’m sure it happened, but I don’t recall it, and if I did say that, I believe I was probably thinking about something else."

If whether or not Tony lives or dies is unimportant, then what does Chase want viewers to come away with from the critically-acclaimed show's final scene? "The question is, to be really pretentious, what is time? How do we spend our really brief sojourn here? How do we behave, and what do we do?" Chase explained. "And the recognition that it’s over all too soon, and it very seldom happens the way we think. I think death very seldom comes to people the way they think it’s going to. And the spiritual question would be: “Is that all there is?”