Shades Of Blue
Drea de Matteo has a thing for strong but troubled characters and she’s adding to her list as corrupt detective Tess Nazario in Shades Of Blue (2016-current). But the most attractive aspect of Tess isn’t the depth of the role or that it’s fun being bad. “I’m back working in New York, baby!” she laughs. “The cast and my character are fun, but I’m overjoyed to be home at last!”
The 45-year-old’s second role is 1
still the one she’s best known for, as Adriana La Cerva in mob drama The Sopranos (1999-2006). “That was such an incredible job,” she says. “And those fingernails were like claws!”
She jokes that while she fits the 2
stereotypical mafia wife profile [being Italian from Queens, New York], “I’m the furtherest from it. I grew up playing with dolls and putting on plays with my mom Donna.”
Not that she’d ever deny her heri3
tage. She speaks fluent Italian and admits that there’s nothing better than a slice of authentic New York pizza.
Drea does have one or two bad 4
memories about her home city though. In 2015, the apartment she’d lived in for 22 was destroyed when a gas explosion blew up three buildings.
She always wanted to work in 5
theatre but behind the scenes. Drea studied directing at New York’s famed Tisch School Of The Arts but a lecturer suggested acting and she was cast at her first theatre audition.
And while she loves her “cheap 6
’n nasty” roles like Adriana, Drea dreams of Broadway stage plays. “That is my endgame. To be on Broadway in a show that my kids – daughter Alabama (10) and son Waylon (six) – can appreciate and enjoy with me.”