As every fan of “The Sopranos” knows, Adriana LaCerva is living on borrowed time.
A while back the sexy mafia moll made the wrong friend — an undercover FBI agent — and has since been forced to squeal to the feds about Tony Soprano’s gangster family.
Since then the hit drama, in its fifth season on HBO (Sundays at 9 p.m. ET), has found Adriana racked by conflict and guilt.
“What am I doing?” she moaned to her FBI contact. “I’m being ripped apart here, snitching on people.”
Worse: She knows if Tony discovers she’s ratting him out, who cares if she’s the fiancee of his beloved nephew, Christopher? Adriana’s gonna disappear real quick.
But even in the best-case scenario, Ade, along with the series, will be history after next season’s slate of 10 episodes (whenever that is, given the show’s propensity for long breaks).
In March this fact was bumming out Drea de Matteo, the actress who has made an art form out of whining “Chris-tuh-fuhr.” She peered beyond “The Sopranos” and fretted, “There’s not really much money for me to make in the film business.”
At that interview, she looked very unlike Adriana in jeans and baggy sweater, and — in stark contrast to Adriana’s flashy manicures — with nails free of polish and clipped short as a child’s.
“The kind of projects I like,” de Matteo went on, “they’re not moneymaking projects.”
Maybe another TV series? “I’ve been on the best television show, so to go anywhere beneath that wouldn’t feel right to do right now.”
Even if it were a high-profile sitcom? “Not yet,” she declared.
Sister of a famous FriendHow things change. Next week, when NBC unveils its fall schedule for advertisers at its gala “upfront” presentation, de Matteo will be on hand as a late addition to the cast of perhaps next season’s highest-profile new sitcom: the “Friends” spinoff “Joey.” She’ll be on display right beside its star, former Friend Matt LeBlanc.
After the media siege triggered by last week’s “Friends” finale, many viewers had no trouble relating to the California construction worker whose brain was pierced by nails fired from a high-powered nail gun.
Fortunately, he survived. So shall we. And, who knows, “Joey” (which inherits the Thursday-at-8 time slot of its celebrated forebear) could turn out to be lots of fun.
Anyway, de Matteo is psyched about her new gig, as she made clear during a follow-up phone call last week.
“It was very, very unexpected,” she said. “I never even had the chance to think about it.”
She will co-star as the older sister of dimwitted would-be actor Joey Tribbiani, who, post-”Friends,” moves to L.A. to further his career — and moves in with her.
“I play a hairdresser — or should I say ‘hah-uhr-dressuh’?” de Matteo laughed. “My character is very similar in look and accent to Adriana, but sharper and tougher.”
Despite the apparently comfortable fit, “at first, I didn’t think I was the right choice for the part,” she says. “For one thing, I had never done a sitcom.”
Innocent in loveA New York native with a film degree from NYU, the 32-year-old de Matteo had found scattered work in theater and films when she landed a one-day, one-line role in an early “Sopranos” segment as a passing fancy of Christopher’s. But Christopher proved smitten with Adriana. So were the producers. Adriana quickly blossomed into a key character.
“Adriana was the innocent,” says de Matteo, and, at least until the feds got their claws into her, she was the sole character who could have walked away from the crime life. “She is the only one who fell into the trap. The rest were already there.”
Blinded by her misplaced love for Christopher and her lack of self-respect, says de Matteo, “Adriana ended up being the most vulnerable character on the show. People think she’s tough, but it’s just the accent and the hair and the makeup that makes her seem tough. She’s a scaredy-cat, afraid of everything.”
To hear de Matteo talk, Gina Tribbiani won’t be afraid of much — least of all, swapping zingers with her little brother.
But during her initiation as Gina for the “Joey” pilot, de Matteo confesses she was nervous.
Doing sitcoms, she found, is “really, really, really hard. They’re always changing the lines. You have to learn how to hold for laughs during the performance. It takes a high concentration all the time.
“But Matt’s a great guy,” she adds, “and I couldn’t have asked for a better actor to fall into the hands of, after working with Michael Imperioli,” who, playing hothead Christopher, “is so safe for me. He’s a warm soul.”
When de Matteo’s casting on “Joey” was announced a few weeks ago, there were many knowing nods from “Sopranos” fans. Her new role seemed proof positive: Adriana’s number must be up.
Not necessarily, says de Matteo: First-season production of “Joey” will have wrapped when “The Sopranos” resumes filming next March.
Calling her new series “a natural transition,” she says, “I get to walk right into another already existing family situation: the old ‘Friends’ crew. And we’re on the ‘Friends’ stage. I have Jennifer Aniston’s dressing room!”
A couple of months ago, de Matteo was anxious about being typecast as Adriana forever. But “I love playing that sort of character,” she now insists.
“Besides, doing a sitcom is a huuuuuge challenge,” she pronounces with all due emphasis. “And I’m up for that challenge.”