Drea de Matteo is best known for her Emmy-winning role of the fan favorite Adriana La Cerva on The Sopranos. Now, she’s opening up about why she left Hollywood, which is a place where she never felt like she belonged in the first place.
It’s yet another example of a star bailing on Tinseltown.
De Matteo Leaves Hollywood
“You know, a lot of people ask me about getting canceled or getting kicked out of Hollywood or shunned. That never happened to me,” de Matteo, 52, explained to Fox News. “I wasn’t in there to begin with.”
“I’ve never been a Hollywood player,” she added. “I’ve done a few acting parts of it on a few TV shows…I’ve done a good job. I even have, you know, some achievement awards and things. But like, I was never really in the industry.”
De Matteo went on to explain that she has “never played the celebrity game.”
“I don’t own fancy purses…or walk red carpets,” she continued. “I don’t mingle with famous people….It’s just not my world. So, for me to walk away from it, not a big deal.”
She’s quite humble for someone who played a huge role in one of the most iconic series of all time!
De Matteo’s Fond Memories Of The Sopranos
Though de Matteo has left Hollywood, she still has fond memories of her time on The Sopranos, which ran from 1999 until 2007. The HBO series drew 13.2 million viewers at its peak and won 21 Emmy Awards in various categories.
It is fondly regarded as one of the finest shows ever made.
One of de Matteo’s fondest memories is of a funeral scene in which she and Michael Imperioli were supposed to be high, so the two actors decided to make it authentic.
“We’re supposed to be really stoned on the couch, so we smoked weed, and it was the biggest mistake we ever made,” she confessed. “We were not…we didn’t even know how to be in the room around all these actors, all these extras. We were freaking out.”
De Matteo recalled that the makeup team was “putting red dye in our eyes like red eyeliner, and we’re like, ‘We’re so stoned, we don’t need this!'”
Related: Bond Girl Ana de Armas Joins the Ranks Of Celebrities Fleeing Hollywood for Greener Pastures
James Gandolfini Honored By de Matteo
De Matteo also expressed her frustrations about how her late Sopranos co-star James Gandolfini was portrayed in the documentary Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos, which was about the HBO show. Gandolfini sadly died young of a heart attack back in 2013.
De Matteo lamented that the documentary “had the opportunity to write [Gandolfini] a love song. Why not? He was the hero of the network, he did more wonderful things than the missteps that they needed to highlight.”
“He was a hard worker,” she explained. “Did he blow off some steam? Sure, he did. I think we all know how to blow off some steam. But to capitalize on that, to tell a story about ‘The Sopranos,’ to make him look like Tony Soprano, this man was nothing like Tony Soprano. Nothing. And, you know, because he was such an incredible actor, he lived in that headspace.”
Related: The Son Of The Late James Gandolfini, Michael Gandolfini, Joins ‘Sopranos’ Cast For 25th Anniversary
De Matteo’s New Focus
These days, de Matteo is focused on her new jewelry collection, which is part of her ULTRAFREE clothing line. With a laugh, de Matteo said that her new Tombstone line includes name plates on them “in case you forget who you are, just take a look down there.”
“I mean, so a lot of people make nameplates, but ours have little protection symbols,” she concluded. “You could put a cross on it, a gun.”
While we miss de Matteo’s acting work, we can certainly understand why she’d want to leave Hollywood behind. We wish her the best of luck on all her future endeavors!
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