I remember sitting in my honeywagon and a lot of people don't know what a honeywagon is. The trailer you see where all the trailers are parked that have the tiniest little rooms ever, so you know, like the main actors are not in the honeywag. There were rooms with toilets with a pillow on the toilet, so you can sit on your toilet while you're waiting to be called up.
That's a honey wagon. So I would be sitting on my in my Honeywag, and every time I got a script because they kept bringing me that in my episode twelve man, I'm sitting on my toilet and I was in twelve scenes and I lost my ship and I ran to a pay phone with my script and I called my mom collect and I said, mow, you won't well it it twelve scenes come. That was it. I was on my way to becoming series regular. Hi am
Dred and Mateo from Brian's favorite show. I there, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Off the Beat. I am your host Brian baum Gartner today, I'm your happy host. Why well, if you know me at all, you know what a fan I am of The Sopranos, and today I am bringing on Emmy winner Drea the Matteo Adrianna from The Sopranos. Let me listen. Just listen to her say Christopher, Christopher, just one time, and you will be instantly transported back into the world of the
New Jersey Mob. There's some spoilers in this one spoiler alert, but it's twenty years since The Sopranos, so if you haven't watched it, I guess you're not going to um. This is an amaze is in conversation about both The Office and The Sopranos. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. You're gonna hear from Drea about how Adriana was one of her earliest roles and how
heartbroken she was leaving the show. But since then she's gone on to be on one of my other favorite shows, Sons of Anarchy, Joey, Desperate Housewives, Shades of Blue, the list, it goes on and on. Talking to her today, this was even better than I expected, and I expected a lot, so I think we should just dive right in. You should hear from the woman herself, Drea the Matteo. Everyone bubble and squeak. I love it, Bubble and squeak, Bubble and squeaker, cooking it every month, left over from the
nut before. What's up? Hi? How you doing? I'm so sorry, man, I could not get it together. Everything in my house is misplaced, this wasn't plugged in. I was just like, so, I'm sorry. It took me a minute to get it all together here. Please don't apologize at all. I'm so happy that you agreed to come and talk to me. I have we ever met? We haven't really. I mean, I know, we haven't really Allwood style meeting. You know how we all just know each other. Yes, you know,
we just don't kind of know each other. But you know, I have a confession to make. I've never watched The Office. Well does that seem to me? Because it's right at my first of all, well that's okay because we're not going to really talk about that today. Well, I mean, it's so weird and what what years did it run from? So it was on the air two thousand five two? Yeah, that's why. Because I was busy having babies and watching
like baby shows non stuff, and that was it. And I don't I don't haven't seen anything that has come out. I would say since two thousand seven, Like I completely stopped watching television completely except for cartoons Mickey Mouse, Clubhouse and ship like that. Well, I'm kind of in the same boat. I have a little one to so little ones. Yeah, it's that can be. Do you watch Blueye is Blue? On the on the radar? Well, now my kids are big, but for a year now we watched Naruto and um
and Stranger Things. And now I got them into that you're gonna crack up. But now I've gotten them to watch The Righteous Jim Stones. Really that's great. My daughter is like what you know, when the when the sister is like, yeah, Daddy, I would shave my asshole. I'm going to kill you. M Yeah, just Gemstones. That's where we've graduated to. She's fourteen. Now, there you go. That's the funniest man alive, the funniest. My son is. Yeah, they would probably love The Office. I need to watch
the Office with them, and that's what we're gonna do. Yeah, all right, well let's do that. I mean, luckily, for this conversation, I've seen everything that you've done, I think, so that'll make things go a little smoother. But I want to start back before then. You you grew up in New York, right in Queens. Yeah, I was born in Queen's Um. I went to school in Queen's maybe for like a year, and then mom realized, yeah, maybe this person shouldn't be raised here in the armpit of America.
Maybe we get her into the other armpit of American Manhattan. I went to school Manhattan for years, but we also got we have We lived with my grandmother and Queen's but then we had apartments in the city all the time, so we were back and forth a lot. And your mom was a playwright, is that right? Yes, she taught playwriting at HB Studios three years. She was herb Bergof's protege um and he would direct all her plays and
udhah Hagen would star in them. And then when Uda got sick, my mom was the healthcare proxy, so she was dealing with the studio a lot. So she really took care of that place for a lot of years. But now she has dementia, which is crazy when like one of these brilliant, brilliant minds just couldn't disappears. So bizarre to go from being the smartest lady in the room to that. Um, but it was Yeah. I grew up watching all of them playing house on stage. I
was like, get me out of here. He's adults are crazy. I was playing an house. So you would go to rehearsals a lot and you would watch Is that that's how you spent your childhood? Every birthday? Every birthday was a play opening of hers and she thought it would be cute doing it on my birthday. I was like, cute, I am fucking ten years old. I had no appreciation for any of you people right now. I despise you all. Um. Yeah,
I hated it. I hated going to rehearsals. I you know, I started to like it when I was I would say it was thirteen. She did a play of a bunch of teenage boys with Patrick Dempsey Jerry O'Connell, Like all these kids were in the play, and I fell in love with Patrick Dempsey. Okay at that time, you know he was a teenager and he had to leave the play to go do can't by any love. I'll never forget that. And then Jerry O'Connell had to go and do stand behind me. Um, yeah, that was pretty cool.
You know, because we were just my family. My mom, you know, was small town Queen's people. You know, she was raised in a mafia family and not you know, if you if she she wanted to become an actor and her father was like, only horse become actors. So she ended becoming a play right later on in life. So that was it's a big deal for her. You know that those guys were nobody back then. They were just little kids. But yeah, she she did do it. And you know, nobody from Queens as a playwright, you
know in those days. That's so so it was really about getting a crushes on boys that started to like make you interested. Uda Hagen didn't didn't do it for you. I still wasn't interested even then. I know, I was fine sitting there while I had to wait for her to come home and sit at the theater because I was going to school uptown. But I know I was I I only started acting. I would also say that I was just telling my boyfriend this the other day.
Every one of my boyfriends in high school, they were very ambitious, all of them, and they all wanted to be actors, and they didn't. They eventually they would leave me or cheat or do whatever because I wasn't ambitious enough because I'd sit around smoking weed, you know, partying, just being a hippie, living my best teenage life. And they wanted to become these big time actors. And they were just like you're going nowhere, We're going somewhere and goodbye.
And I was like, okay, I'll see you later, man. I was like accepting my award. Why so I went to n y U film school. I wanted to make movies. I had no interest. I loved Weird German Inde film when I was a kid. That was had become sort of my obsession. So I went to film school in Too, n y U and I was going for filmmaking. And then I would jump in front of the camera for all my all my own student films because I was too busy partying. So I never was prepared with my projects.
So I have to be in my own movies doing a one man show, which she probably relates to. It is probably commedian. Um. I was like, I don't even know what I'm doing. All my friends were like, you know, you should probably just do that you're good at, not this, And I was like I could do it. I do it all, and I think that part of me felt like filmmaking was just too giant a task at that time.
And I was good at the acting, and I started taking all these acting classes for directors, so I never had to feel like there was any pressure on me to be an actor. But I really enjoyed it. I really really really enjoyed it. I think I enjoyed just not being myself because I was this kid growing up in the theater that hated my life because of it. And now I realized these people didn't have to be themselves,
So this is what's going on. This is great. But then as I got older, liked being myself and I stopped acting as much as I used meeting myself now, so who I don't really need to act that much, but it is funny. So yeah, that was really how it started. That's so interesting to me. It was a revenge job. I did it out of revenge. Brian, you did like from your childhood, from your mom or is
that what you mean? No? I think with all the guys that were like, you're working with my actors, and I was heartbroken, you know, even though in your stone that was still heartbroken. I was like yeah, I was like non fucking guys, and they were dating all these like supermodels and one of the actresses and all this stuff, and I'm like, but I don't want to be an actress. Like all these girls are waiting tables and then at
nightclubs every night, like fuck this. I mean, I was bar attending, so I should really speak, but I wasn't pretending that I was. Who is it trying to be anything other than Bartenden. But I also had a manager that somebody stuck me with when I first started acting, and I took a high. I left her because I was like, I gotta get my life together. I'm kind of smoking too much weed and doing too much of everything. I'm gonna get my ship together and come back to you.
And when I came back to her, she said, you need voice classes because your voice is in atrocity and you will never work in Hollywood. And I was like, okay, but I want to work in New York, so I'm good. She's like, I'm sorry, I'm not going to represent you until you've had a year's worth of voice classes. I thought that was really drastic, but I went and I started up for voice classes and I told her that I was, you know, those classes are pretty common, you know,
littre gonna project you know, speech whatever it was. And she said, no, not that kind of voice class. Not not for addiction or projection or accent. She said, you need to take opera classes because your voice is really, really awful. I used to have such a gravelly voice that I sounded like a guy because I smoked so much. Um, and I really sounded crazy. But whatever, it was unique, I guess any gravelly voice. I was like, come on, let me in and I could play this game. But anyway,
she didn't want me. And then a week later I got The Sopranos. Wow, so that really, Um, I thought that was I thought it was very like Serendipitous said it would be called The Sopranos and I was kicked to the curb because I needed to take what was so unbelievable to me opera lessons. So yeah, it was. It felt very and it wasn't. I was a day player. It wasn't like I got I scored some huge role on anything. Um, it still felt very you know, looking back on it, I always tell the story like, yep,
who's singing now, bitch? You know I'm saying, I know. Um, it's like okay with this voice of mine that you thought was genitrosity. So yes, I feel like my entree into the world of it all began with revenge, not love, not a love of no, because my father would say to me, don't do this unless you can't do anything else.
This is the most heartbreaking thing you'll ever do. But once I started doing it, I then realized this is the only thing I ever want to do, because I did fall in love with the craft of it all. I fell in love with scoring a script. I love the score a script when I was when I was younger from a directorial standpoint, you mean score script No, as an actor, I did when I was doing theater when I was younger. I loved breaking a script down as an actor, really having the journey in there and
scoring it with the right actions. I guess, yeah, you're through line and action. So really it was like a math problem for me. Yes, So this is so fascinating to me because like the master of all scoring of scripts is Uda Hagan, who as a child, Yes, you never read her book No, and she used to. She used to watch me act because I took place at HB and she she gave me one of the best compliments I've ever gotten in my life. And she was
not easy, man, No, she's not. No. But like the greatest book, in my opinion, on acting ever written, Respect for Acting by Udhah Hagan, Like that's where like that's where I from, I don't know, four thousand miles away or whatever, Like that's where I started learning how to score a script. I mean in terms of through line and action and objectives and all of that stuff. That's so interesting. This is something that you love to do.
Yet the perspective, this perspective is just interesting. As a kid, You're sitting there while your mom is playing make believe with a bunch of people on stage, Like that is the crazy, crazy thing. Well, you know, I think I learned how to act watching my mom teach honestly, to watch her teacher. She was really known in the in the underground theater world. The way she taught that class
was was magic. And I would even send my friends that were having emotional problems to sit in her class because the way she would explain action in your life, like how you affect people cause and effect that you're never. You have to stay active all the time. The moment you become stagnant, everything just sort of falls apart. There's no you know, states of being. You always have to be in a state of doing something otherwise the script
is going to fall flat. I mean, look, there are a lot of great tableau sort of style films, but it doesn't work in TV land, you know what I mean. It doesn't work on stage either. I feel like TV and stage are very similar. And the fact that the writer is the king, the director is you know, they can be interchanged, which they are every week. Um, the writing team the usually the writing team, and they are psychotic about their words. I mean, I don't want sopranos.
I was not allowed to change. Even I could, I kept saying with David's please, I don't want to say Christopher. I hate saying it because I can't. My accents sounds so stupid. Um the Christmas fla, I felt like it sounded so fake. I said, can I just call him Christie? He's sitting up and Jesus Christ, That's what I've known for now. I walked down the streets. Can you just
say Christopher? Christoph? The writers king? Yeah, well you know going back slightly, because I when you had this manager, so I thought the manager was going to be brilliant. Now it turns out I think I think not. But I think what's so interesting to me about you and your work, starting with the Sopranos, is that I think
of you your physicality and voice being connected. So see, I thought when she was talking to you about having voice lessons, she was feeling like you weren't connected to your voice in some way, um, which I think you always are, If that makes sense. That's why people want to hear you say that because your intention, your needs, objectives seem always tied in with your physicality and your voice is yourself physically. Is that something that you think
about as you're creating a character. Yes, it's yeah. I have like hang ups. I have certain hang ups with certain characters, especially with the character like Adriana. Um that was very specific for me. I have things like shoes, like the right shoes, like if I'm not if I could never take my shoes off, even if I was off camera and playing the scene with somebody, because Adriana wouldn't be not in those high heeled shoes. Like they would't even say to me, Hey, you're gonna be off
camera all day. Don't put on your nails. We're not going to do your hair. You know, we're just gonna because we'll take four hours to get me ready sometime. Um. And I was like, no, man, And I was younger, so obviously it was a lot more precious about we know now that we when we're older that you know, you kind of kind of just show up and do
things and still be awesome at it. But when you're younger, you don't know, you don't have that confidence, you know, so you hanging on all of the the outside stuff to grab onto. Um. Some people call that method. Some people call that being a diva. Some people call that being painting. Ask Um, I don't know. I needed it. I definitely needed it to come alive as that character. I couldn't have the accident without all of that stuff.
Like there's you know, me in a bathrobe with my hair wet, and I had such a hard time being her without makeup. One I was like, who am I? So I guess it's that was a little superficial of me to a degree, because everything should be right in here, guys, those of you who can't see well the way you see, right, this is not a visual Now, it's gotta be inside your heart, you know what I'm saying, inside your body. But yeah, it's a it's a weird thing. Yeah, it's
interesting to the accent. That's my favorite thing to do, is that accent. And when I was younger, I didn't want to be stereotyped in that world because it's really hard to come back from that. And I, you know, I'm being Italian. I had another manager who wanted me to change my name to make it not sound Italian, and my father got so fucking mad at me. I was like, all right, we'll just leave that. He's Aboutineer or about chin On. I was like a paragraphic didn't say, now,
I only want to play with Americans. Now you do, that's what you want. I would do anything to get back into that realm again, where I'm playing a real New Yorker, like a heavy accent to New Yorker. You know. I did like She's blue j Low and stuff like that, But that wasn't me getting to play that. I loved Adrian, you know, And it took me a lot of years later to recognize that that it would have been okay, but I just kept doing that for the rest of my life. Right, let's talk about it a little bit.
Pretty early in your career, you get an audition for The Sopranos. By the way, you talked about the voice thing earlier, Jamie lenn Siegler talked to me about I've known for a long time she was a singer, and she kept waiting for David Chase to ask her to sing a song because it was called the Sopranos, and she came and prepared a song. I thought it was
about singers. When I got there too, I wore no makeup, with my hair in a bun and pull back slipped back because they say, just be a blank canvas for them, and I said sure, and I show up like that, and now they want me to play the saucy you know what, would be a queen's girl. And I was like, Jesus Christ, I know how to do that, but I'm not prepared because I don't have the hair or the makeup and I can't put on that accent without it. And I didn't get the part. I put the auditioned
from Michael's girlfriend and I couldn't. I didn't get the part, but he liked me, and he made me read for every other side character. I read for the Russian girls, I read forum, Oh god, I can't remember. There were like four roles that I read for in that script and I got none of them. And then they finally called my agent at that time and said, she seems like a snooty Connecticut girl. Would she be okay playing um the hostess in the restaurant who turns down Lorraine Brocko?
And I was like, you have me learned brock all either? And I couldn't say my lines because I was so nervous. I was with Karen, Karen for fucking good bells. I couldn't saying my line at all. I was dying. It was hurt. It was she and Jim, and I didn't know Jim, and nobody knew Jim yet really right um? So I didn't care about him, but I definitely cared about her. And I couldn't say any of my lines.
And then a year later they would call me back to play Michael's girlfriend again, his date, just a date, Like, why are they calling me back? I messed up? So I don't think they knew that I was the same girl. I don't think they knew. Maybe they did. I don't even know. I don't know if I ever even asked that question. But according to Eileen, one of the producers, I got the part as his girl, as a day player role, and another day player part on the show
because of the way I said the word out. I had one line it was out, and she said I turned it into a tense syllable word because I had my mom told me to say it that way. I was at a home's house when they Yeah. I was at my mom's house when they called UM to come into second time and I said, hey, Mom, it's the show. It's that Sopranos show that I told you about. But I had given her the pilot to reach so straight.
This is gold. She's like, this is the most unbelievable scripts I've ever read and TV it read like one of her scripts. Um, and I looked at her and I said, yeah, I'll probably never get made. She said, probably not too good. And that was And then year later they called me at their house and said, hey, can you come in for an audition. I said no, I can't. Actually I'm in Queens And they said that's funny. So were we can you be here in a half hour. And I was like, oh to my mom and I go,
how quick are those chicken cutlets? Can be tough? My grand cutlets. My grandmother goes, make a chicken cut and the sandwich. Just get in the car and go. My mother goes, I'm gonna get your name plate and diamonds out of the safe. You need to wear it because I had this Andrea in diamonds on a rope chain from my confirmation. She goes, you're gonna wear that. You go tease your hair, go put makeup on and talk like Silvana my neighbor. And I was like, okay, let's go.
And then I went with my parents in the car. They were waiting for me. In the car, I ran into Silver Cup Studios, which was in Queen's and I think my audition and I came back out and I my chicken cutlet sandwich and then I got I got the part and it was just for one line. Though, you know, I still have my checks from from those, my five hundred dollar checks from my first day player role sitting on my remember sitting in my honeywagon and a lot of people don't know what a Honeywagon is,
but Honeywagon is a trailer. You see where all the trailers are part that have the tiniest little rooms ever, so you know, like the main actors are not in the Honeyway, they're little toilets. There are rooms with toilets with a pillow on the toilet so you can sit on your toilet while you're waiting to be called up. That's a honey wagon. So I would be sitting on my in my Honeywagon, sitting on the toilet every time I got a script because they kept bringing me back,
which I thought was super cool. I remember being at Craft Services, David Chase coming over with me and he goes, you know, people in the editing room really think that you're a couple with Michael And I said really, and he's like, yeah, you guys have really great industry. And I looked at him. I was like, must be the eyebrows. People have big eyebrows. You know. Um that my episode twelve, man, I'm sitting on my toilet, sitting on my toilet in
the honey Wagon. And I was in twelve scenes and I lost my ship and it ran to a pay phone because that's all we had and I ran too a pay phone with my script and I called my mom collect and I said, mow, you'll well it twelve fucking scenes. God, that was Let's see that that episode of the music industry stuff, and that was it. I
was on my way to becoming series regular. And I always tell people like I never would have gotten that part if they were auditioning for a series regular, because you know they were mirrort Rovino versus Tommy Debbie Mays are all those girls would have been the perfect actors for those roles, you know what I mean. So I got really fucking lucky. You said your mom read the pilot and talked about how good it was. Obviously your
experience in the pilot was, you know, was brief. But at what point did you realize that this was not just a job and they were giving you more to do, but the show itself was something special? Oh man? I you know, because I grew up in that world of watching her critique scripts, and I've heard great script scripts everything. And she wrote heavy about mafia because her father was made guy, so you know, reading all her scripts about that subject everything, I knew I was reading something that
that was beyond you. Know. I also want to say why films, So I studied Scorsese like a lunatic. Key was my obsession when I was a kid in Main Streets was my favorite movie. And then Good Fellows had come out, and I it was I knew this was going to be the greatest thing ever. I never thought it would get made. I never thought that anybody would
recognize it. I never thought that it would be important in the world and anyway, because I knew that it was of such quality that it might just fail or not be not be great, you know, and and and the truth is, when the show did come out, we did have a lot of critical acclaim, for sure, but we also had a lot of a lot of haters. Hollywood still did them love us. I could tell when we would go to the award shows. I could tell the way we were not cared about on the red carpet.
It was really like people thought we were the real people in the show, showing up and making a joke out of their society. That's how it felt. It felt like. And all of us actors to show some of the people were very much like their characters, but a lot of them were not really, not at all but we were so into our characters and so into the show, and so into the idea of never breaking character for the sake of the show. Um, so what you New York actors, We're nuts, you know. So I feel like
we showed up in character. We should up in a new Jersey transit, us on the red carpet for the Emmy is the first year and we all which rest the part, you know, we came in like a fucking gang. We were nuts and we were we had our egos in check. We were ready to roamble. We were like, we are the mafia. You all better step aside right now. But they didn't want us. They did not want us, and we felt it. It's so interesting. I have never articulated this before, but I I was watching you, right.
I mean, eventually when you guys started showing up is when we started showing up to the same stuff and your people. That's who I was hanging out with at those things. And I think to a large degree, it's because both of our shows were that way right, Like we were not friends. And I keep using that as an example, but like, regardless of quality of show or like anything else, they were all made to be on the cover of Cosmo and Vogue and TV Guide and
Entertainment Weekly, and we just weren't. We had one like very special Entertainment Weekly cover edition and that was like really big for us, and so we were always kind of that way as well. The step children hidden in the back, and we were having fun. You know. Jenni Fisher talks about us at our first Golden Globes, it was like the Beverly Hillbillies come today. We showed up at the Golden Globes. I showed up in a Honda Civic. We were asking whereout, We were asking where the valet.
I wasn't driving it, but there were four of us crammed into a Honda Civic at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and we thought we could valet some there like no sirs and MAM's you can't valet. So one of the one of our cast members, drove a mile away and had to go find parking and walk. He's like, I'll drop you guys off, and we went walking the carpet with no invitation. Nobody cared. But it's so fascinating because I think getting back to actually your point, we were different.
Both shows actually were not made from that traditional television model and mo, this is how it goes, and this is how the people look and this is how everybody behaves. We were not that, And I wonder if that's why I became friendly with so many of the folks in your show as well, because I felt we were kind of the same in a weird way. Well, I also think, like, you know, even though I haven't seen The Office the way a lot of my friends are religious office freaks,
you know. Um, I've caught some of it, and I'm always like, God, this would be my favorite show if I sat down and watched TV for a minute, because it's it is so and like Sopranos, everybody gets it from one thing. You well know, I always said this about about the Sopranos. It appeals to so many people on so many different levels. Um, you have the gumbas that like it for the gunshots. You have the critics that really understand the intellectual nature of the show and
the way it's written and handled. Then you have people that dig it for a family show. Then you have people that are just mafia obsessed. Um, So it has something for everybody. And I felt like the intelligence of the show, which is what kept it in its in its glory. I'd say the same with The Office, like it was. The Office was so off the beaten path and so genuinely different. Like the style of the humor, the style of the jokes, just dry and not in
your face. It's not a sitcom, you know. It was one of the for me, also one of the more genious shows. And yeah, and you guys all looked like real Pete, we all look like people too. Um, but yeah, I would say that you who are you hanging out with? From the cast though when we were, I would we were always very at least from me. I was so shy that I was in the back row of anything. I'd be in a corner. If we were at an event, if there was a red carpet and I wasn't required
to be on it, I wouldn't be there. Um. I was very shy, so I didn't. I didn't socialize at all, right, I feel like it was you know, we would say hello. That's why I said, I mean, look, you're you're also talking to someone in the Sopranos was around before. So this for me, I mean spoiler alert, it is. It is my all time favorite television show and your performance in the show is one of my all time favorite
television performances in the history of television. No, but a big part of it is what I talked about before. That connection between voice and physicality and body and movement and the specific journey that you went through was just just stunning. But I want to I want to ask you something because you kind of brought it up and I wasn't planning to ask you this specific question. But is the Sopranos is it a Mafia show? Well, first of all, thank you for all the things you just said,
because that was very nice to hear. A hundred years later. It's there. It means a lot to me. And I think about the whole team that was behind us creating those characters with us and I and I'm so grateful for all of them. Um, is it a mafia show? The level of David Chase's writing, but the way the way he formulated the show, the way he included every It's no, it's not a mafia show. It's a show about family and the Mafia is the backdrop. That's the way I see it. Um, it has something for everybody.
Everybody has their reason for loving the show, and they're all different. So that's why I feel like even the end of the season, the end of the whole show to wrap up the way they ended it, and people hated that so much, it really kept in line. I don't even know if David Chase would agree with me, but I always felt it kept in line with this sort of blank canvas where the show could be what
you wanted it to be for you. You could take away from it what was important to you, whether it be or a woman in a family having a husband was cheating on her um, or you're you know, a guy caught up in the crime, or you know, whatever it is. So I always felt that way, especially at the end too. It was another blank canvas for the audience to say, this is how I want to see the story end. Yeah. In preparing to talk to you, I mean this, this goes to the point, Um, we
have a great staff. They put together a lot of a lot of questions or things for me to think about talking to you about. There there was a point written down about your character and what big issues that she had to deal with, domestic violence, infertility, health issues, and then finally encounters with the FBI. Now, maybe aside from encounters with the FBI, the FBI that may be more mafia specific, but the complexity of issues that the show was talking about. I always viewed it the same
as you. It was about a family dealing with issues and their family. They're connected, family dealing with issues. Uh, the mafia was just a backdrop for it, but it was talking about so many other important things. Was it difficult for you diving into such dark stuff? I mean the violence with Christopher, infertility, dealing with that, the health issues that your character was going through. Were you able
to leave it behind or had you? Did you go so method that you would carry that stuff with you afterward?
I was I have lost a friend. During that time, I didn't have kids yet, having kids and doing what I do, what we do, you know, I had to start dialing back, like maybe I'm gonna use a tear stick now, you know, maybe I'm not gonna sit and prepare for six hours before I show up it's on set, you know, because I can't imagine sitting around thinking about my kids being mutilated and destroyed, because that's where I would go. I at that time, it was extremely method.
I would hold on to everything and carry it around in a box. And I never wanted to be antisocial on set. I never wanted to come across like a fuck to anybody. So I always made sure that I could let the air out every two seconds when it was time to talk to the hair and makeup wardrobe. But they also always knew that there was you know, my my best friend now who was the PA on the show, and she's one of my best friends now in life. She always do to keep everybody away from me.
You know, I didn't. I wasn't. Everybody has a different method of action. Some people are more methodical and can show up and do their work. I was definitely more like a tighter in a cage because I didn't have that much training. I used to wild animals a film student. I didn't know. You know, I had done a little
bit of training, but it wasn't immense. It was definitely I think if I would have to go through that now, it might be harder, or maybe looking back on it, it was hard because I know when it was time for me to leave, When they told me that I was going to be leaving the show, I had to find my piece in that. So the only way to find my piece in that was to say, you know, I'm ready to laugh because this has been a year
of crying NonStop. So when Joey came along, fucking Joey speaking of friends, I always like, I didn't want to do it, but my dad was like, you you're taking this job. He made me take that fucking job and bought me this house. So I mean it was a good deal. But you know, between he and Matt le Blanc got there, I had no choice but to take that show. But I knew that I needed to laugh after that because it was intense in the end, but not always. It was just in the last year before that,
and it was a party. That's why I was asking on Sundays after the awards, would you hang out with us? Because we were not There was a select group of us that would get together after the awards and we would end up at an after hours place called the mouse Trap. I don't know if you were ever there. Oh my god. Every time we'd go into an award ceremony and they would put us up either at the Peninsula or the Four Seasons. I would end up on a two months hangover at the Hotel. I literally would
move into the hotel and not meet for months. I remember you all staying at the Four Seasons. That's all I'll say. I remember you guys staying at the Four Seasons. That was in the end. The Peninsula was our first. Yeah, I see, I wasn't. I wasn't around them. We joined you at the end. I have to ask you a couple of questions about Adriana and the character. Specifically, what do you think her relationship with Tony was? How does
she view him? I well, I mean, look, as soon as I knew I had that storyline all of a sudden, I had like, well, I think I always had the biggest hearts in my eyes for Jim. I even tell her his his wife. I'm like, you know, I had a crush on him. He was hot man, those eyes like he was the sexiest guy alive to me in those days. Um, Adrianna, would she necessarily be into him. She was so loyal to Christopher, she loved him so
so much. I think that it was for her, more than anything, a fleeting moment of of just enjoying the attention from some one who was powerful, someone who was big, someone who felt safe. And I think that she enjoyed his company a little bit, but I don't think that
that there ever. I don't think she would have ever really want I mean, the thing got nicked in the bud obviously, but I don't even I never even got that far when I was doing the podcast watching those episodes, I don't remember exactly what happened there because I haven't watched them since they are it's been it's it's been fairly recent. I went back and watched it within the last couple of years. And you know, the car accident, right,
we were going to get blood. Yeah, the car, the car accident happens, and the car accident is what sets things on end with Christopher because you know, he finds out you're in a car accident and it's very concerned, and then or Adriana not you and a car accident, is very concerned and then finds out it's whatever it was three o'clock in the morning and telling yes, and
Tony was with you. Um, but I thought that that was danced around, and I thought, your answer right there is really smart because in a lot of ways, right, Tony is so different from Christopher in terms of his confidence, in terms of his power his effortless power and security and that attention, particularly when you know her partner was not giving it to her so much. It was just I thought that was just such a very interesting storyline. Yet, as you said, she was so loyal and loved him
Christopher so much. Would she would she ever? But I thought, I think she also not have the confidence. She doesn't have the balls to be with the with the formidable man. I even though he's fucked up in all his ways, he's still more of a man and Christopher is. And I think that she's less of a woman than Carmela is in a lot of ways because she she really just focuses on the other person like she I mean, she is trying to do something for herself with the
music industry and all that stuff. But I always look back at my character and I think to because back then I was like I have nothing like her, and now I look back and I'm like, Jesus Christ, I became her. I ended up dating all these musicians my whole life and basically just doing everything in my power
to make sure they got to stand in their light. Meanwhile, I was like probably wrecking my own little world to a large degree, and I'm like, I turned into Adriana fucker, but I really get a ship beat out of me, but definitely a moment um feeling like like emotionally, I was getting the ship beat out of me just by having to endure the musician's lifestyle because they're all crazy man's being in the mafia. It could be the same thing we're always looking to get up to because climb
that ladder to get up there. When you received the script for the episode Long Term or King, did you know in advance where your story was going. I had a feeling for sure, but I am I had gone to David Chase before an episode five. I went to David Chase. I remember this, and I remember the episode and everything. I went to him and I said, hey, I know that this may not end well, but I just have a question. Because we take such long hiatuses.
I like to direct a film. It was my first time getting back into the possibility of going back towards the other side of the camera. Um. One of my mom's students had written amazing script and I wanted to direct it, and I was going to start in it too, So I brought that to him and said, I just want to know when would be a good time for me to do this. How long is our hiatu is going to be? Am I even coming back? Maybe you don't even want me to come back, and you're gonna
kill me. Now, who knows? Well, you don't want to ask David Chase these questions. You don't let them know that there's anything else that you might anticipate wanting to do. I wasn't saying I want to do this instead, I was saying I want to do this as well. Well. He said to me, I'm gonna shoot at two ways. I'm gonna shoot you getting killed, and I'm gonna shoot you getting away, and no one's gonna know how it ends until it airs. And I was like, it's not
even me, Like I don't know what you mean. And he's like nope, he goes there's too much, too many confidentiality issues on the show. We're gonna have to shoot a two ways anyway because there's a snitch. There's a rat. I'm like Jesus Christ. I was like, it's life is imitating our here, right, there was a snitch on the show. There was the confidentiality on our show was probably more heavy.
Dute even on any other show whatever existed, I would say to a large degree because of this whole Monday morning water cooler thing that had just been gone with us, and and those storylines, especially Adriana dying, you know back in Big Pussy Died, that was a big one. But that was in the beginning, like you didn't, it wasn't. This is now five years with this character and she's female.
It's different. So they shot at two ways, and I lived from episode five until whatever the long term parking was. That's when I got that script. And when I got long Term Parking, there was something in the script that bothered me, and I went to David Chase, I went to Michael. Why didn't go to David Chase? I went to Michael first, and then I went to Stevie van Zana because he was going to kill me, and we
all talked about it. Um. They had a scene in there where Christopher tells Tony that I that I spoke to FEDS. He goes down to the laundry room in in his in his house where they speak in Tony Sprano's house and confesses everything while he's crying and and Tony Saprani says I'll handle it. And then you see the next scene of him calling me, and you know that now she's dead, and that's it. I really wanted
that scene taken out. I felt like, and I've never been outspoken about anything, but I really felt like that scene saying in there would have just I feel like, let this be the biggest moment of the season and let everyone not know what's about to happen. Like everyone should just be like what is about to happen and freaking the funk out instead of knowing exactly what her ride is that ride with Sylvia, So me, Stevie, and Michael, I think we all discussed it with them and tried
to have it removed. I didn't know if it would help or anything, but when I watched the show, it was gone. And then if you watch the next season, it go. They showed that actual scene in a flashback because they shot it, but they used it in a flashback for season six, I guess. So I was like, thank God, because I really was protective of how it would end. And that was it. That was my That
was my sman song right there. Yeah, you riding in the car with Stevie on the way, not of course, as you just indicated not fully knowing where you were going, but as you start driving and it changes, uh, it becomes it becomes clear. Just one of the most haunting scenes and beautifully performed and shot scenes I think in um in the show. And of course you don't actually see you dying, but that horror and fear on your face makes it even worse that you don't see. I
remember Steve van Zand was on a talk show. I don't know if it was like Leno or something, and he goes, so, what were you doing? Did she? Did she die? And he looks at at Leano whoever it was, and he goes, what do you think I was out there? She will fucking squirrels. Stev, don't want to do it. We labored so hard. At that point when we shot
that scene, I was done. I had already signed on to Joey like I was done, you know, I was ready to go, and he but if they weren't done, they were still in it, and we're killing her and I have to call her content, I have to pull her by her hair, and I was just like, just do it. Let's oh, we gotta do it. But yeah, it was It was pretty freaking crazy that a whole sitting in the car. But you see the way they
shot it. They shot at both ways that he used the flashback of me imagining and getting away and then we don't and then I don't get away, and honestly, I still didn't know what the end was. Because I signed on for the six the sixth season, I wasn't allowed to take another show. David came to me and said, no other shows after this, you know that, And I was like, okay, but really, like give up my entire career.
I can't do that. But they did sign me on for three episodes to do flashbacks and also to shut up um. But I still had to take the other show because I had to. But if the news got out that I had taken it, so that everybody kept saying and the press that I was that I was done, that I was dying, and I flipped out. He called me, I'll never forget. I was bond Street Sushi in Manatan with my with my ex, and he was like, we
need to talk. And I felt like I had done the biggest betrayal of my life by taking that show. And I don't know how the news got out there, but it fucking leaked, and I was like, I'm gonna fix it, don't worry. So I got my publicist to get me on some talk shows. I wish I could find it. I don't even know which one it was, but I basically went on one of those shows and I was like, no, I not died, and I didn't take jolly. What the fund is? Jolly? You know, was
gonna get friends and offer to people. Crazy. Yeah, so Brando's and and and and friends unite, Like, give me a fucking break, you know what I mean. I had to fake it until I until the show came out. I felt so guilty that had got nowt so crazy? Uh you went the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress for that season? What does that mean to you? So many things? You know, looking back now as a fifty year old, I think I was in my twenties when I won that award. At that time, I didn't want to be there.
I was petrified of awards. I hated the Awards season. I hated being there. It was a lot to get me to show up to any of them. I don't like a red carpet, I don't like getting dressed. I don't like any of it. But I really had a focus on the fact that, like I was being recognized and I and that it was important and I was
up against people who I fucking adore. I mean, I think it was like Robert Robert Wyger, uh Clamity Jane Deadwood at that part that she had played was really something else, Like it was really out there, and then they stopped her channing. Um so the Emmy didn't mean a lot to me now as an adult, you know,
and then I was a child in my mind. But I also was very afraid to win the award because I felt like every woman that had won an award for playing a role like that had a really hard time coming back, like Mersa Tomay and Maria Swarbino, like all these girls who who could salt like this it's really good and can like do that whole thing, and they want to know word for it. It's like they got to work extra hard to break out of that after And these were film stars, so it's definitely easier
for them. But then you're a TV star doing that and now everyone's U see you living in their living room with them. I mean, you know, I'm sure people when they see you, man, they know you. You You were in their house having dinner with them every single night. It's not like Brad Pitt or fucking Charlie's and everyone's like, oh my god, look it's Brad picture I was. They're like, no, hey, what's up. Come on, what's gonna sit down there with you? You know? And I'm soy. I never I'm like, yes,
let's take a picture. Yes, I could be crying having a moment with my family and someone is like, you know what, this is it? This is my moment with you, And I'm like, okay, it's fine. Yeah, yeah, I mean, but here's the thing. I never put the in the out. It lived on the floor in my guest bathroom for years of your guest bathroom. Yes, and so the floor of the closet. I used to joke around I was going to throw it off a Laurel Canyon because I always felt like I felt like life was best when
I was on Sopranos. I felt very fortunate to continue working, for sure, But nothing ever felt like the Sopranos to me ever. Working in New York. You know, my people, my world, my heritage, like everything that I come from and everything that I believe, you know, in in great writing and structure, all that stuff. It all existed in there. I never ever had a moment where I was like, no,
this sucks. I don't feel like saying this. I don't want to say Christopher all the time, but but I really was very appreciative to you mentioned well, you mentioned having to lie about it. Eventually you do join Joey, which is uh going to be the next big NBC comedy show. You're moving from comedy. You talked about your dad and Matt LeBlanc telling you you had to do it, that it was time for you to get out of
that world. Was it difficult for you? This is just what occurred to me when I started looking at the dates. It was hard for me to remember. Was it difficult for you that your old family was still working on the Sopranos and you were doing something so different, so far away? Yes, I stole in the p a from Sopranos to go with me and moved to California. Um, so that felt good. She left the show and came with me. They wanted to kill me. I mean, when I tell you this is not just a regular p A.
You know how it is on set. I mean this world that came every she became everyone's life there on this woman ginger and now she's a you know, going off to become a producer at some point. But so I felt like I had that connection to the world still because she was still so in touch with everyone. Um. But it was exciting, man, it was. It was still exciting. And I adored Matt so much. I remember being at the Awards and I think he was there. I think
he was at the Emmys that year. It felt good too, you know, I loved him like I I. We all hated that experience while we were doing it. We were all very unhappy because there was so much pressure on us. Joey, Yeah, I couldn't focus on what was going on with the Sopranos. At that time. I was done. I was moving on to a new chapter in my life. If I was leaving New York. I bought a house in California. It felt like all my dreams were coming true, you know, like this was the next place to go. I was
making a lot of money. It felt fantastic. Matt and I could not stop laughing for two years. But and we still had fourteen million vieers by the way. I mean, I just have to say that we were pitted that we didn't have seventeen million, because that's what friends had. We fourteen million, not too fucking shabby, but that was considered a fail back then, and we were suffering through that to a large degree. And we didn't like the writing.
We didn't the writing was up too far. Um. I was a miserable because I didn't think I belonged there. I felt like a fake. I was nervous all the time. My Great Dane was dying, which I know, it was so crazy, and I needed to have him with me all the time because he was going through chemo and he's a two hundred pound dog. So he was on
that Friend six. We had a friend stage. We were all I was in Jennifer and since room that I was across the hall from me with my giant dog shitting everywhere, and no dogs allowed on stages because at nine eleven there was all this, all these new regulations in place. So we would sneak a two hundred pound Great Dane in and their doctors and they would do
keemo there on set. It was insanity. So thinking about the sopranos and what those guys were doing at that point, and god knows how long it took them to finish finished this season, those seasons because they took these crazy hiatus. Is you know, at least I felt like I was on a regular schedule for the first time. I didn't love being on that schedule. Um, the Sitcom schedule. It wasn't for me. Matt tried to sell it to me, It's gonna be great, you know if you have kids.
I'm like, I don't have kids, bro. I am like, you know, I need to sleep until twelve. What this I gotta be a work at eight in the morning. So you were not happy? No, I wasn't He wasn't happy. All we did, all of us, was complained on stuff, which was ridiculous because we all had it made, you know, and I think if we all sat down and talked about it now, we'd all laugh about it. But we did last whether we were happy or not. We didn't know what the hell, you know, we were coming off
so much success on both of our shows. It was going to be a weird transition. But I was so happy that it was with him first of all. And I hope he was happy that it was with me because we were like immediate brother and sister for sure, Like we couldn't have had better chemistry and report with each other, like we just got each other. Yeah, obviously you've done a ton of other shows Desperate Housewives to mention another big Emmy Award winning show, I have another
personal favorite. I I got into it late and then I did do the like thing that you need to do on the office and I went back and watched what felt like eighty seven seasons of Sons of Anarchy and I and I was a fan of the show, and I watched it. I haven't watched all the other spinoffs,
and it's continued in various forms, I think. But it occurred to me on that show that unlike the Sopranos, in that show, you do get to ride off in the sunset at the end and and kind of I mean, as difficult as as your character was, the struggles that she went through, uh, and not always the nicest of people are best of people. Um, that you get redeemed in that show and get to write off in the sunset, I thought was was very nice. Did you have a nice experience working on that? I did. I was happy
about that. I mean, my, my, it was unique, my my whole deal with that show. I always marvel at the fact that, like I've known for all of these shows that never really paid me, never money on these shows, and it's mine blow. People think I'm made of you know, a lot of cash over here, you know, so friendly as we don't get residuals period sons. I was a cameo in the pilot, that's it. Always friendly with the producer through a friend of mine, and I was in
the pilot and I die, that's it. They paid me a decent chunk of change to do that because I was the only you know, it was me and Katie Seagal. It was just us that people knew really that well from television. So I was I was like, it's a fun cameo whatever. And then they said, wow, we didn't know she would actually do it. Can we keeper as a regular? And I said, fun, Yeah, I would love to be a regular. Just tell me where you want to go with the story because right now, I'm a
super villain. I've never played a super villain. I've only played vulnerable. So when they tested the show, the show tested through the roof, and they came back and said to me, we don't need to pay you because we have a show here. We don't need your TV as I need your celebrity. We're gonna be good with nowity, so we're gonna cut your paying. And I was like, okay, well I'm leaving then see later. And I left and
I moved back to New York. I remember me. I got back to New York fifty boxes in a truck and the minute I get there, my agent calls and goes, you need to come back because you're gonna do Desperate Housewives instead. And I was like, wow, okay. So I took Desperate house but I wanted I wanted an out after a year. I didn't want to stay. Um, I don't want to be tied into the show in case I didn't love it. So I took a really low pay for that too, because I just wanted that contract
to give me that one year out. Then I watched the I started watching Sons of Anarchy with my AX and I when we had the I had the flu and I wrote Kurt, and I go to you gotta bring me back because all my friends were riding me. Try and come back and do something crazy. I go, you want to bring me back for me back, I'll come back for nothing. He felt bad that EFFECTS had tried to cut my pay in half. It wasn't him when he told me that early on. So we'd stayed in touch, and I wrote him and Katie and I
was like, guys, I'm loving the show. You guys are crushing it. I think it was the Ireland episode and I said, bring me back. I'll come back. I'll do whatever. I don't care how much you pay me. And I did so for years. I was going back and forth and doing Sons, but I wasn't really getting paid until last season. He came to me and said, I want to do this with your character, but you can't leave
California because I'm gonna need you. And I said, when you're gonna have to pay me and make me serious right here, and I'll stay because I would go back and forth to New York and if I wasn't available, I couldn't been on the show whenever they'd ask me. And that was how it worked. That's how my job, my life. Everyone thinks I'm a series regular on suns and I never I never was. I was just like, if she's in town, she'll probably do something kind of thing.
So the last season, I said, fine, I'll stay in one place, let's just shoot it out. So I was I loved it. I loved to go back and that capacity in the very end. It was nice to have that character more fleshed out, because she wasn't really fleshed out. There wasn't She was never an intentional character for the show. She was supposed to die on the pilot. It was like Adriana. Adriana was never written into the Sopranos. She became a part of the Sopranos because she showed up
and that's who they went with. Eventually they liked me. I got fucking lucking. The same thing happened with me on Suns So I definitely feel really chant So it was cool to end like that, And it was cool to close out the show for them and to do all the press at that time and to be the voice of what was going on in the end. It was cool. And then I got to you know, I was sexy with Turling on him. Everybody wanted that, pretty wanted that. I got to do it. I could talk
to you all day. I won't take up any more of your time, but I want you to know how much I appreciate. Oh, Paradigm City, are you coming back season two? Are you shooting that? I mean, that was the most fun thing I've done since Sopranos. I'm just going to put that out there because this is a fucking guy who's a record label owner. He's John Avoldson's estrange son. This guy built up a life so that his father would see that he was doing something with his life, right, but on his own he has a
record label. He's extremely successful. He has saved all This is the filmmaker. He saved all his money and then got investors to create his own TV show. I don't know how many episodes without a studio, without a network, without any talent, and he put together a cast of YouTube influencers and Disney stars and then basically part of the cast of Sons of Anarchy, which is Me Boone and Marian Herbst and makes a goddamn and rock stars
and makes this fucking TV show. I mean literally, there would be scenes set up at the Roxy that were so elaborate and we wouldn't get to them, and he'd be like, oh, yeah, we'll do it next week, like it was not even an issue like his I don't know, is abody to use one of my New York because you words, his Huts book was so fantastic, Like I couldn't get over this guy. I was like, I'm signing on because I want to see somebody do this. I want to see this guy and make this happen. Um
so he blew me away. I don't know what he's gonna do it again. He sold it to Amazon and it came out in the pandemic and it was perfect timing. I never watched it. I never watched any I've only watched The Sopranos, if anything I've been on because I was a super fan of Sopranos, I don't even relate to having been that character. Sometimes I watched it and I don't thought it was me. That's cool, It's like, it's so awesome. I got to be on that show. Yeah right, it's crazy. I'm gonna I can't wait to
watch The Office. I'm gonna watch it with the kids. But I do have a movie that's coming out September second, and one is outright now. The one out right now is called Collide, and that's with Ryan Philippi and Cat Graham and Jim Gaff again and Jim is fucking unbelievable in it. Um. I think it's streaming now wherever you can. Jim is playing like a really serious character. Yes, yes,
it's it is out streaming wherever you stream things. I am so excited to see this when I knew I was going to be talking to you, congratulations on that. And Ryan is an old buddy of mine, so I hope he was good behaved himself. I never got to meet him because I played Jim's wife Gaff again, which is not and he seems like he could be somebody that would have been on the office, you know what I mean? Yes, yes, for sure. And then the other movie coming out September two, One Way, which just cool.
That's a machine gun Kelly, Kevin Bacon trap. I did it because of Travis Fimmel, because I alre he was just the hardest actor on the planet. When I watched Dances with Wolves, I was like, who is this guy? So when they asked me to come do it, I was like I said to Travis when I met him, I said I would travel three thousand miles to put a gun to your head any day, and that's basically what I did. So I play a really bad guy in that one, a real bad guy, a real gangster.
So I get to be the real asshole this time. I can't wait to see it. Dretta, thank you so much for talking to me. I so appreciate it and enjoyed it. I'm a big fan and I wish you nothing but continued success and uh, everybody will go and check out One Way September second to see you play a super villain. Awesome. Thank you man, it was great meeting you. Nice to meet you. Thank you, Dreya, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was
so much fun for me to hear your story. And let's face it, I for one will never be able to get enough of the sopranos. Your insight incredible, So thank you, and listeners, thank you as always for stopping by. Don't forget to follow us on at Off the Beat on Instagram, leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Please subscribe to the podcast wherever you like to listen and have a fan freaking tastic week. All right, I'm going to be back before you know it, and Oh, it
will be awesome. Off the Beat is hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley. Our producers are Diego Tapia, Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris, and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary, and our intern is Sammy Katz. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend Greed Bratton