Drea de Matteo Slams David Chase ‘Sopranos’ Documentary for Making James Gandolfini Seem Like ‘A Beast’

Transcript

00:00What was it like kind of revisiting Adriana during the, I know the David Chase documentary

00:04and things like that. What was that like? I loved reconnecting with David. I was so happy

00:09to be a part of the documentary. I think Alex Gibney is an incredible filmmaker.

00:16When I saw the film at Tribeca and I saw the part about James Gandolfini, I was appalled.

00:24I really was disgusted with both HBO, the filmmaker, the whole operation. Not the

00:31filmmaker and not David, but it's their baby. I heard David was okay with the film. I don't

00:40know that he loved it, but I don't really know. I think he had to have last say, I would say,

00:45but why pick the lowest hanging fruit on Jim's character and take that and run with it and

00:52flatten him out to a one-dimensional character that is not much different than Tony Soprano

00:58when that's not who he was. David wrote that character. Jim was a fantastic actor who would

01:05never, ever do anything less than completely go where he needed to go to play that character.

01:12They used that against him in the film and painted him out to be a kind of a beast.

01:18I found that disgraceful. It's like they took the actor that made that network,

01:25millions and millions of dollars, changed the face of television,

01:29and sensationalized him to make another fucking dollar off of him. I found that disgusting.

01:37Because I don't act anymore, really? I was ready to be like, boycott HBO. How dare you do that to

01:45him? I mean, yeah, there are stories out there for sure, but they had an opportunity to tell

01:50a different story because that was their baby. You know what I mean? He's not here to speak

01:55for himself, and we all are. We can all tell you that we all partied like crazy, but no one had

02:03the responsibility he had to be there every single day and give a top-notch performance that would

02:09rattle America. And it was such a disservice, I thought, and so disrespectful.