“The Sopranos” star Drea de Matteo is not happy about a new book by the show’s location manager Mark Kamine.
“It’s just kind of a money grab for that guy,” the actress, who memorably played Adriana La Cerva in the HBO crime drama, tells in an exclusive interview.
In “On Locations: Lessons Learned from My Life On Set with The Sopranos and in the Film Industry,” Kamine briefly recalls the late James Gandolfini battling substance abuse issues while playing mobster Tony Soprano.
De Matteo, 52, says she felt compelled to speak up because she is “really tight with Jim’s wife, his widow and his daughter.”
She also tells us that Kamine’s account is “not accurate.”
In his book, Kamine writes that Gandolfini turned up late to film an episode during Season 5 after spending the previous night in Atlantic City.
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The actor, who died of a heart attack in 2013 at age 51, eventually showed up four hours late, according to the author, “cursing his way through his half-learned lines, doing take after take, drinking coffees and bottles of water, alternatively sheepish and churlish, the way he always is when he f–ks up.”
Kamine further claimed HBO added a clause to an “increasingly unreliable” Gandolfini’s contract “making him responsible for shoot-day costs if he misses work due to excesses of consumption.”
De Matteo criticizes the location scout for detailing her late co-star’s alleged personal demons, calling Gandolfini a “really incredible person” and “so much more than whatever [Kamine] was writing about.”
“Jim was an angel,” she tells us, “and I guess because he was an angel, you know, he’s not here.”
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The co-founder of the new streetwear line Ultrafree also questions the timing of the book, as it hit stores just weeks after the show’s 25th anniversary.
“To go and cash in like [that] — like, the Italians don’t like that,” she says. “We don’t freaking like [that].”
For good measure, de Matteo demonstrates how she truly feels about Kamine by giving the middle finger during our interview.
The author tells via email that he has no comment on the criticism.
“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, whether they read the book or not, I guess,” he says.
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