Drea de Matteo isn’t big on red carpets or hobnobbing with other celebrities.
The “Sopranos” star, 52, told Fox News Digital that walking away from the industry was “no big deal,” because she never really felt like she belonged in Hollywood in the first place.
“You know, a lot of people ask me about getting canceled or getting kicked out of Hollywood or shunned. That never happened to me,” she explained. “I wasn’t in there to begin with. I’ve never been a Hollywood player. 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, who played Adriana La Cerva on “The Sopranos,” explained that she has “never played the celebrity game.”
“I don’t own fancy purses and s— like that or walk red carpets. I don’t mingle with famous people. I don’t, it’s just not my world. So, for me to walk away from it, not a big deal.”
WATCH: ‘Sopranos’ star Drea de Matteo says she never ‘played the celebrity game’
Right now, Matteo is focused on her new jewelry collection, which is part of her ULTRAFREE clothing line, joking that the tombstones in her new Tombstone line have name plates on them “in case you forget who you are, just take a look down there.”
She said that charms can also be added to them.
“I mean, so a lot of people make nameplates, but ours have little protection symbols,” she explained. “You could put a cross on it, a gun.”
‘SOPRANOS’ STAR DREA DE MATTEO JOINS ONLYFANS AFTER BEING LABELED ‘SAVAGE’: ‘NOT ACCEPTING DEFEAT’
Her Protection collection, she explained, has gun pendants.
“What’s funny about that right now is I always wore a revolver, a little tiny revolver with a pearl handle,” she said. “People would give them to me all the time, A, because my ex’s name was Shooter, and B, because I was on ‘The Sopranos,’ and I always wore a bullet hanging from my earring.”
She continued, “For me, it’s more, it’s a symbol. It can be a cross, it could be the Star of David, but it could be a Hamsa. It could be any symbol, any religious symbol. But the guns are fun. Just like Guns N Roses was a cool name for a band, just like Velvet Revolver was, just like the Sex Pistols. But, you know, these days, everybody’s clutching their pearls. And I’m saying, ‘Why don’t you clutch this instead? Protect your mind, protect your soul, protect your integrity, protect your independence.'”
Reminiscing about “The Sopranos,” De Matteo remembered a funeral scene where she and Michael Imperioli were supposed to be high, so the two actors decided to make it authentic.
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“We’re supposed to be really stoned on the couch, so we smoked weed, and it was the biggest mistake we ever made,” she admitted. “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.”
She said 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 s—.'”
WATCH: ‘Sopranos’ star Drea de Matteo shows off her new jewelry collection that features gun pendants
She assumed “some people knew” they were actually high, “but we were supposed to be stoned and acting totally stupid.”
De Matteo also revealed how frustrated she is with the portrayal of late “Sopranos” star James Gandolfini in the new documentary about the show “Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos,” which she participated in.
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She said she felt that the filmmakers “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 continued “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.”
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During the height of its popularity, “The Sopranos” drew 13.2 million viewers and won 21 Emmy Awards in various categories, with Gandolfini winning three for outstanding lead actor in a drama series, and de Matteo winning one for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series.
