A Quote by Drea De Matteo

I swore I would never do a reality show. I've been offered them for years and years because our family life is a little crazy - I will admit to that. Definitely not the conventional mom or family - or anything, for that matter.
I've been working since I was five years old, and everyone in my life, outside of my family, would look at us and go, "You're crazy! Take your kid out of the business and put them in school because you're never gonna succeed."
I've thought my show would be a sitcom or a talk show. Never in a million years would I have thought my show would be docu-series/reality because you always think reality is something crazy.
I've been asked for years to do a reality show. One of my criteria is that I would be given the opportunity to show a strong family unit.
My family is Mormon. I'm not Mormon, but my family is, and my mom was like, "You're doing a show called Lucifer?! But I will admit, he is handsome, so I'll watch it."
I feel like I've been lucky that I've never been put in a situation where I had to keep a serious secret. But what is true of me - and has to be true of everyone who's ever been in a family - is that our idealization of reality when we're children always has to fall apart. It's the narratives we didn't know about that pop up and redraw reality. You have to be able to integrate secrets into who you are. My family does not look now like it does when I was a kid. There was divorce. There were family secrets. There was definitely a difference between what I thought was true and what was true.
'Grey Gardens' consumed my life for over two and a half years. It really takes its toll on the family. I'm not there to tuck them in, help them with homework and eat dinner with them. When I work on a show, I only have about 20 minutes a day with my family.
My family came to Australia on the First Fleet. My family’s been in that country for a long time, over 100 years. If your family’s lived in Australia for a long time, everyone has a little bit of [Aborigine blood]. I know my family does because we have an eye condition that only Aboriginal people have.
I'm pretty sure I can say that no one in my family ever asked Demetrie what it felt like to be black in Mississippi, working for our white family. It never occurred to us to ask. It was everyday life. It wasn't something people felt compelled to examine. I have wished, for many years, that I'd been old enough and thoughtful enough to ask Demetrie that question. She died when I was sixteen. I've spent years imagining what her answer would be. And that is why I wrote this book.
I'm not crazy, but it's a crazy life. I was raised in a crazy family and it took 31 years to get the crazy out of me.
My years on 'Family Matters' were precious to me. During the run of the show, I saw many births, deaths, weddings... The actual family on the show became my family.
After I retire, for some time at least, I will spend my time with my grandchildren and my family members, because all these years, 50 years, I have not been able to give my time to them.
I would definitely want kids. Would they be dancers? I dunno. That's up to them. If they show interest, I will push them do the best. I was not brought up in a dancer's family. I was brought up in a family where the mentality was whatever you do, you gotta try to be the best at it.
No matter how you feel about your extended family or family gatherings you will be attending. This is because now the ultimate reason for attending family gatherings is for your children to have the time of their lives with their cousins. Little kids love their cousins. I’m not being cute or exaggerating here. Cousins are like celebrities for little kids. If little kids had a People magazine, cousins would be on the cover. Cousins are the barometers of how fun a family get-together will be. “Are the cousins going to be there? Fun!
Over the years, I've been offered quite a few reality shows, and a lot of times they're about bickering and drama. I watch some of the Housewives, and that can create some real tension in your family!
Never wanted to do anything else than acting ever in my life. But I'm 20, and there's so many possibilities. It would be insane for me to say, "Yeah this is definitely it, I'm never doing anything else." I'm 20 years old. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know anything about life. So I don't know. I may be a train conductor in 10 years. I have no idea. And that's the joy of this all.
Ask anyone and they'll most likely say their family is crazy, and if they don't say their family is crazy, their friends are crazy. That's because everyone is crazy after taking the mask off. People are most themselves when not really trying to fit in, when either alone or around those already closest to them, and that is crazy.
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