'I lost everything': Drea de Matteo says she took herself out of Hollywood | Dan Abrams Live

The streetwear le Ultra Free. Thank you so much for taking the time. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Hello there. Tell us what you why you're convinced that it's your political beliefs that have gotten you blackballed from Hollywood. I mean, I don't really I don't think I was so much in Hollywood to begin with to have been blackballed. I know that's kind of the story that everybody has been saying about me. You know, I've been on some big TV shows. But I definitely had to turn down jobs and I got dropped by my agency, you know, all that sort of stuff. I wasn't on a show when the mandates came around, so I didn't have to deal with that sort of opposition. I sort of just took myself out of the industry knowining tt I couldn't get on board with the, you know, the high sales of things that were not for the people in my mind. What was the problem for you? Just the people you'd have to hang out with and you'd have to work for, etc., if you sort of pulled yourself out of it. Oh, I don't know. No, no, no. I just knew that I couldn't I couldn't do anything because I wasn't vaccinated. So and I lost everything. I lost my home. I got it back. I figure things out. But, you know, I sort of went through a death and a rebirth. I think. And my political views are not any different than they always have been. So I think what's changed is society and I don't know that Hollywood has really changed, but it's captured. I feel I feel like there's a lot of and I also you know, I see a lot of these like really big celebrities endorsing things that I wonder if they really are aware of what they're endorsing. And if they are, I would say I don't understand why they would want to hurt so many people further than what's already been done and what's anticipated with the way things are going right now. So those things made me question a lot of stuff. So me being a part of Hollywood, like I don't I don't I don't think I was ever a part of it and I don't think I'm a part of it still. So. Well, it's a tough business, right? Whether you call it Hollywood, you call. It acting, you call it being on shows wherever it is. Right. It's a tough business. It tends to discriminate against a lot of women as they age. Do you think that. That's part of it or do you think it's really more the. The the realities of of your positions on certain issues? Oh, I see. I see why we're here. Okay. Well, of course we're not. There's discrimination against women as they age and I mean. No, it's fine. It's fine. It's not a dumb question. I mean. Jobs. No, not at all. Not at all. I just don't get into the whole female thing in Hollywood. A lot of people do. And they you know, a lot of women sort of get up in arms about the equality between men and women. I don't really ride that horse so often. You know, I feel like a lot of women do get great jobs and a lot of women do get to be in Hollywood is I mean, yeah, there's an aging stigma, of course, but I was never one of these actors that I'm not a career actor. I'm not like someone who wanted to be in the industry all the time. I just want to work and feed my kids and go from job to job. I never wanted a career in in the life of it, so for me it didn't really make a difference. The only thing that made a difference was the finances. Like I needed to be able to pay for my kids to eat and whatnot. And I couldn't because my jobs weren't. Sopranos was the only job to me that was like a spiritual, Oh my God, this is what I do when I love it. After that, everything was, you know, going to work and doing a job. So it wasn't a huge loss for me. It was just the loss of being able to work. And that went for frontline workers, that one for doctors. It wasn't for firefighters that happened to so many people. How could I sit here and feel bad for myself when heroes were being turned into zeros? I could care less about the Hollywood experience. Really? So. So now in this sort of post-COVID. You know. The post-COVID world to. Some degree, are you trying to get parts again? Are you actively pursuing roles? Um, I mean, my agent dropped me at the time. No email, No, no text, you know, things like that. When you see that within the industry, But other people came out of the woodwork when I kind of took a stand against it, and I really begged them to leave me alone. I said, I don't really want to do this right now. I don't really feel like acting at the moment. I am so deep in the reality of what's happening that I don't really feel like it's the right thing to do is to escape it at the moment. So I just want to be myself for a little while. I'm comfortable with that. So I mean, if something great comes along, it's a really fantastic part and they'll allow me to play in their sandbox againithout knowing that I wasn't compliant, then sure, I'll, you know, I would come back out, but if there's a place for me, but I'm not going to break down door is to be an actor more. I'm a mom more than anything. I'm a mom.