Drea de Matteo (Actor)

Drea de Matteo at the 2007 Sundance Festival. (Photo: Evan Agostini / Getty Images)

About Drea de Matteo

A cigarette-smoking, trash talking girl from Queens, Drea de Matteo looks the way her name sounds, hard hitting and full of Italian attitude. As a young girl, Drea (pronounced "Dray") often attended rehearsals with her playwright mother at New York City's prestigious HB Studio. But this early exposure to the world of theater served only to convince Drea that she did not want a career in acting. She kept this view through adolescence and applied to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts with the intention of becoming a director. Although Drea scored only a combined 800 on her SAT (she describes herself as "wasted out of her head" while taking them), a completed screenplay granted her admission to the elite film program. While at NYU, Drea took acting classes solely to gain perspective as a director. But she received overwhelmingly positive feedback in these classes and by the time she graduated, she had herself a manager.

Drea had only appeared in a couple of guest spots on unmentionable TV shows when she landed the part of the hostess in David Chase's experimental, cutting-edge, modern day mob pilot, "The Sopranos" (HBO 99-). Originally, Drea was going for the role of an "Italian bimbo. " But David didn't think Drea seemed Italian enough so he stuck her in the tiny role of the hostess at the Italian restaurant frequented by the mobsters and their families. As the hostess, she performed her two lines sans the now famous gritty Jersey/New York accent. To her surprise, Drea was called back to take the role of Adriana La Cerva, the uber-moll girlfriend of young mobster Christopher Molesanti. The role was meant to not last more than a few episodes but Drea played the part with such memorable flair that she was soon written in as a fixture on the show. In the following seasons, her influence as Christopher's fiancee continued to grow. Drea also continued to gain fans and secured a bit of a cult following as the quintessential straight-talking, long-nailed tough girl. Her 5'6" lithe tattoo-covered body is a favorite for upscale male magazines as well as local auto body shops. Drea's sharp featured face and leather attire offer an appealing alternative to the wholesome blonde ingenues currently filling the screens. With an attitude to match this razor sharp image, yet a palpable soft side to her demeanor, Drea has carved out the niche of the sexy bad girl with a heart of gold.

While garnering praise and ever increasing notoriety for her role as Adriana on "The Sopranos," Drea also made some impressive ventures into the film world. She appeared in several indie films in 1999 and 2000 including "The Gentleman from Boston" and in 2001 landed the role of a Puerto Rican drug lord in the film "R Xmas," directed by noted indie director Abel Ferrara, which premiered at Cannes. Drea's brief appearance as a New York club girl in the Jon Favreau's directorial debut "Made" was hailed as one of the film's best moments. Her brief role in 2001's "Swordfish" similarly showcased Drea's talents; she played the alcoholic ex-wife of a convicted computer hacker. She next appeared as a gang leader's girlfriend in "Deuces Wild," (2002) a 1950's mob drama featuring several noted actors such as Debbie Harry, Norman Reedus, Balthazhar Ghetty, Brad Renfro, Frankie Muniz and Fairuza Balk. She also received strong notices for her turn in 2003's "Prey for Rock & Roll," as the tough, self-destructive bassist Tracy, a trust-fund baby fighting a losing battle with drugs and alcohol, in Gina Gershon's all band the Clam Dandys. As her role in "The Sopranos" became increasingly pivitol to the mob drama in 2004--earning her an Emmy in the Best Supporting Actress in a Drama category during her final season on the show--she also landed the plum role of Matt Le Blanc's tough single-mom sister Gina in the highly anticipated "Friends" spin-off "Joey" (NBC, 2004- ).

Besides her acting career, De Matteo maintains a clothing boutique and designs fashions. She and onetime boyfriend Michael Sportes, whom she met when he moved into her apartment as a roommate, own a rock and roll clothing store in Manhattan's East Village. The actress had been designing rhinestone t-shirts (a craze which would sweep the nation and Hollywood) and Michael had been a vintage clothes buyer when they opened Filth Mart in 1997 -- though they split as a couple, they remained business partners. De Matteo also shares her home with her former nanny, a Nicaraguan woman who helped raise De Matteo from birth. The caretaking roles reversed after Drea took the woman in after she had a heart transplant several years ago.

Notes

"Goddamn! I love playing roles like that! If it's got accents and costumes and all that, I'm there. To play some straight-up girl, some Midwestern character with no point of view whose only goal is to get her guy back by the end of the movie, that would bore the shit out of me." - De Matteo quoted in Interview, September 2004

"I don't understand why I'm so special and why everyone wants to take my picture. It's the whole sexpot thing, it's a little over-the-top for me." - De Matteo quoted in Papermag, June 2001

"I'm not one of these new young girls. I've been around the block ten thousand times. I'm an old, haggard bitch." - De Matteo to Premiere July 2001

"If I had stayed in Queens, I'd have about six kids right now and I'd be stirring the sauce, sweating over the oven." - De Matteo on why she wouldn't live in Queens and date any Italian guys, to GQ September 2002

"To do 'The Sopranos,' I had to get the accent back, and once I started, I couldn't get out of it. My agent says, 'Quit talking like that! How am I supposed to get you work when you talk like that?' I tell her to leave me alone, I'm f***ing working. I'm Adriana." - De Matteo quoted in Esquire, April 2001

Co-wrote a semi-autobiographical play with her mother called "The Heart Transplant."

Drea has several tattoos including AC/DC on her stomach, a sacred heart on her wrist, a crucifix on her ankle and her mother and father's names on her right arm.

She and director Bret Ratner were in the same Spanish class while both were film students at NYU.