Drea De Matteo: 'I'm always typecast'

Drea De Matteo has revealed that she is used to being typecast.

De Matteo, who recently joined Desperate Housewives as Angie Bolen, explained that her role in The Sopranos means that she is stereotyped.

She added that she regrets working on Friends spinoff Joey because the producers just wanted an exaggerated version of her Sopranos character.

"After that I just quit for a while," she told the Daily Record. "I didn't want to act anymore. When they killed me on The Sopranos I crawled all the way to a sitcom where they really buried me.

"I felt like they wanted my character from The Sopranos but to turn her into a caricature and that made me sad. I was out of my league. I should never have been there. I come from a dramatic theatre background and they told me they wanted me to smile more and be cheerleady."

However, De Matteo added that she has learnt to love the kind of character she is expected to play.

"Whenever they want the Italian-American they call me," she said. "I'm definitely stereotyped, but I'm okay with that now - it's too much fun. I don't think anybody is ever going to call me to play someone who is mousy and demure and I'm not interested in playing the normal girl in a romantic comedy."

Desperate Housewives continues on Sundays at 9pm on ABC in the US and Wednesdays at 10pm on Channel 4 in the UK.