DdM: You wanna hear my full name? It's Andrea Donna de Matteo. No one ever called me Andrea unless they were mad at me. My parents called me Drea growin' up.
PB: So, they were never mad at you?
DdM: They always called me Andrea, actually. [Laughs] My name is: My great grandmother was Ann, my grandmother is Rea and then the "d" is for Donna, my mother's name. The "a" at the end of my name is for Al, my father's name, so every single letter in my name....
PB: Initially, you auditioned for the role of a bimbo in The Sopranos pilot, and you didn't get it.
DdM: An Italian bimbo, and [creator] David Chase kind of was like, "You're not really very Italian." And then he had me read for the hostess in the restaurant, because he said that I seemed WASPy, and so I played the hostess in the restaurant.
PB: How did they decide to bump your character up to a regular cast member, and when did you find out about it?
DdM: I was in Gucci, getting a pair of shoes, and I got a phone call on my cell phone. Isn't that like the JAP-y story from hell? In the pilot I played a different character. I was in the pilot as the hostess, but I had no accent and my hair was slicked back. You don't even recognize me, and it's really quick. They brought me back as Christopher's girlfriend, without the "R"s... without my "AWHH"s -- I don't pronounce my AWHHs on the show. I probably would have been playing one of his bimbos for a couple of episodes, maybe two episodes, and they just kept giving me more and more.
PB: How did you stand the initial rejection?
DdM: Ehh. It keeps you going. You're like, "I've got to prove it to these motherfuckers that I can act," 'cause auditioning is terrible. It's not even acting as far as I'm concerned.
PB: Is Tisch School of the Arts something you have to audition for or turn in a portfolio to be admitted?
