‘Sopranos’ Star Drea de Matteo Reveals Why She Quit Hollywood – ‘Never Played the Celebrity Game’
Drea de Matteo is best known for her Emmy-winning role as fan-favorite Adriana La Cerva on The Sopranos. Now, she’s opening up about why she left Hollywood, a place where she never felt like she belonged in the first place.
Here’s another example of a star leaving Tinseltown.
De Matteo Leaves Hollywood “You know, a lot of people ask me about being canceled or being fired from Hollywood or being shunned. That never happened to me,” de Matteo, 52, explained to Fox News. “I wasn’t there from the beginning.”
“I was never a Hollywood actress,” she added. “I’ve done a few roles on a few TV shows… I’ve done well. I even have some achievement awards and stuff. But like, I’ve never really been in the industry.”
De Matteo went on to explain that she’s “never been in the celebrity game.”
“I don’t own expensive purses… or walk red carpets,” she continued. “I don’t hang out with celebrities… That’s not my world. So, leave me alone, no big deal.”
She’s pretty humble for someone who played a big role in one of the most iconic franchises of all time!
De Matteo’s fondest memories of The Sopranos Although de Matteo has left Hollywood, she still has fond memories of her time on The Sopranos, which aired from 1999 to 2007. The HBO series attracted 13.2 million viewers at its peak and won 21 Emmy Awards in various categories. It is considered one of the greatest shows ever made.
One of de Matteo’s fondest memories is of a funeral scene where she and Michael Imperioli were supposed to be high, so the two actors decided to make it authentic.
“We were supposed to be really high on the couch, so we smoked marijuana, and it was the biggest mistake we ever made,” she confessed. “We didn’t… we didn’t even know how to blend into the room around all these actors, all these extras. We were going crazy.”
De Matteo recalled that the makeup team “squirted red dye in our eyes like eyeliner, and we were like, ‘We’re so high, we don’t need this!’” De Matteo also expressed her frustration with how her Late Sopranos co-star James Gandolfini was portrayed in the documentary Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos, about the HBO show. Sadly, Gandolfini passed away at a young age from a heart attack in 2013. 10 Most Iconic Teen Gangsters on TV De Matteo lamented that the documentary “had the opportunity to write [Gandolfini] a love song. Why not? He was a hero of television, he did more great things than the mistakes they needed to highlight.”
“He was a hard worker,” she explained. “Did he blow off steam? Absolutely. I think we all know how to blow off steam. But to use that, to tell a story about ‘The Sopranos,’ to make him look like Tony Soprano, this guy is nothing like Tony Soprano. Not at all. And, you know, because he’s such a great actor, he lives in that space.”
These days, de Matteo is focused on her new jewelry collection, part of her ULTRAFREE clothing line. With a smile, de Matteo says her new Tombstone line features nameplates “in case you forget who you are, just look down there.”
“I mean, a lot of people do nameplates, but ours have less of a protective symbol,” she concludes. “You could put a cross on it, a gun on it.”
While we miss de Matteo’s acting work, we can certainly understand why she would want to step away from Hollywood. We wish her the best of luck in all her future endeavors!
