Fuck the Industry
From mobster's moll to punk rocker, Drea de Matteo cusses like a sailor and hates having to do press. We'd like to protest.
Black Book Magazine - Fall 2003.

Drea de Matteo is every publicist's nightmare. She hates doing press, and doesn't rave about her new movie unless asked, neither of which make high-powered Hollywood flacks very happy.

She is, however, acutely aware of how she's perceived by the dreaded members of the Fourth Estate. "Because I am from New York and because I do curse a lot, they always like to say that I'm just like Adriana," she says. "You know, if I say 'fuck,' then I'm 'like Adriana.'"

"I didn't say fahckin (nasally Adriana voice)," she clarifies, laughing. "I said fuckin'!"—an unmistakably Manhattan accent on the fuckin'.

Drea's natural voice is lower, more gravelly than Adriana's. It's the seductive alto you'd imagine a 1950s Hollywood sexpot using to seduce a Rat Packer as she casually removes the cigarette holder from her lips with an immaculately gloved hand. We've been talking for 20 minutes or so, and to be fair, Drea has said "fuck" approximately 12 times. That's about a fuck a minute. But as someone who says "fuck" a lot myself, I'm not inclined to think it's a bad ratio.

Drea's hair is pulled back into a conservative ponytail at the nape of her neck and the glasses on her nose slide down a bit when she laughs. With no makeup and no jewelry, the 30-year-old looks far less imposing than the seemingly Amazonian fashionista she plays on The Sopranos. (Adriana's hair probably adds a couple of inches.)

Then again, she can lay some of the blame for her image problems at her own door. In the early days of The Sopranos, she purposely played on the fact that she came from a blue-collar Queens neighborhood. "It was all bullshit," she laughs. "I was born in Queens, but grew up on the Upper East Side. I went to those fancy all-girls schools. But I kind of hammed it up a little bit for the sake of the character.

Now she says she's ready to be herself, publicity be damned. "Last year I was trying to break away from it and let people know I wasn't like that," she shrugs. "And now I don't really give a fuck (13) what people think."

"I'm really just shy, too," she says. "I don't like walking down a red carpet. It makes me feel self-conscious. I think that whole thing about wearing clothes, and you can't wear the same clothes again, and stylist this—fuck (14) that. Leave me out of it."

In spite of co-owning Filthmart, an East Village vintage clothing store, with her ex-boyfriend, she insists she "hates fashion." "I fucking (15) hate it. I hate clothes. I hate getting dressed." An odd sentiment for someone who runs a clothing store, but Drea says she only started Filthmart to help her ex, who is "still her best friend," although she's now dating Shooter, the son of late country singer Waylon Jennings.

Shooter's a musician "like his daddy," and Drea's a music junkie, so it's a good match. "The Rolling Stones, Rush, the Velvet Underground," she says. "Waylon Jennings." She smiles. "I'm listening to a lot of Waylon Jennings."

Drea's music obsession has recently spilled over into her film career. "If I could have been a rock star, I probably never would have acted," she says. "If I couldn't act, I'd probably either be directing orr doing something in the music business."

In her upcoming film, Prey for Rock 'n' Roll, she plays Tracy, a member of a rock band led by Gina Gershon—a role she initially approached with mixed feelings. "I just wasn't sure if I wanted to do a rock 'n' roll girl movie, because they can be pretty bad," she says. "I've already made a few bad choices, as far as movies go. I'm very proud of The Sopranos and any theater I've done, but as far as films..." Her voice trails off. "Except for Abel Ferrara's movie, ['R Xmas,] because I love him."

The script for Prey for Rock 'n' Roll was developed by Drea's business partner, Robin Whitehouse, and based on a musical that originally played at CBGBs, and was written by tattoo artist and musician Cheri Lovedog. "I am now very proud," Drea says, "because it came out really good, and Alex [Steyermark], the director, made sure it didn't become some cheesy chick flick."

What are her regrets?

"Deuces Wild," she says. "I can't say I really regret it. I learned what I learned from it. But I knew the script was in a bad place and I did it anyway."

"I don't regret doing Swordfish," she adds, "but it wasn't my kind of movie. Originally they hired me to do it with a Texas accent. I'm really good at accents, so I said yes. And they took the accent away from me, or they weren't going to let me do it, because I guess it was [John] Travolta who didn't believe that I could do another accent. I was kind of annoyed about that."

Perhaps Drea's been acting a little too well. "I think I've been on maybe 15 auditions since I've been on The Sopranos," she says. "People don't even want to see me anymore, because they really think I'm Adriana."

But Drea is not worried about being permanently typecast. "I could bitch about it and be bitter and be annoyed, and start hating the fact that I'm on The Sopranos. Or I could say 'fuck this business,' I don't like these movies anyway. Why do I even want to be in them? And half of them, I don't. So the only way to really deal with myself now is to do my own projects—I don't need the industry anymore."

© 2003, Elizabeth Spiers