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But De Matteo wasn’t always in front of the camera. Once upon a time, she wanted to be a film director. Her mother Donna, who was a playwright and playwriting teacher at HB Studio in New York, introduced her to theater and the entertainment world at a young age. De Matteo went to college at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. “I was definitely nervous about how much a director had to manage. While I was in film school, I kept ending up in my own films because I would save them for the last minute and I would never be able to find an actor to act for me last minute,” she chuckles. Her classmates noticed her talent and pushed her to go into acting. “I wanted to act, but I was afraid to. I was shy... It felt like it wasn’t a noble enough thing.” Then, The Sopranos happened. This was De Matteo’s first job. Though she had prepared, she didn’t know what she was doing. The latter wasn’t going to stop her, she quickly learned the ropes and in 2004, she was nominated and won her first Emmy. “Never in a million years would I have guessed that,” she says. “I was not prepared for that. Real nervous,” she says about her win. It’s no surprise that Adriana is De Matteo’s favorite character. “She had some many layers to her. She was vulnerable. She was misunderstood by a lot of the public while the show was going on,” says De Matteo. “She was the sacrificial lamb… She might have been tough and crass, and dressed saucy but she was the innocent. She was the only character who wasn’t jaded, the only character who had no agenda other than love behind her. She was never trying to manipulate anybody. She was pure.” And for those reasons, after Adriana was killed, the show took a dark turn. “I never thought that the death of that character would turn the show around like that.” Over the years, De Matteo has been involved in a number of TV projects. “I had a great time with Matt Le Blanc doing Joey,” she says. “I did not love doing the show, we had so many issues, and I did not want to be there, because I didn’t think I fit in that space, but the fun that Matt and I had while trying to navigate it was immeasurable.” LeBlanc coached her on how to be in a sitcom —which was new for De Matteo. “Some of the best times of my acting career and I’ll never forget that.”