When people recognize Drea De Matteo on the street, they don't ask her about her role on the NBC comedy "Joey." They ask her about Adriana, and how she got whacked on HBO's "The Sopranos."

She has heard all the theories about how her mobster moll character may be brought back to the show, and she hates that she's been nominated for a Golden Globe for best supporting actress -- with Anjelica Huston ("Iron Jawed Angels"), Nicollette Sheridan ("Desperate Housewives") and Charlize Theron and Emily Watson ("The Life and Death of Peter Sellers") -- even though she went home with an Emmy in September.

"I hate it, I can't believe that I'm nominated again," De Matteo tells Zap2it.com. "I will never be able to prepare a speech. I'll never be able to get up there and make sense. I'll never be able to thank people properly. So I'm just hoping and keeping my fingers crossed that one of the other girls wins."

She says she was unaware of Adriana's popularity until her character died. "She was so sweet, she was such a good girl. People loved that character."

Creator David Chase loved the character, too, which is why he did the unexpected and had her killed. "Even when people saw it coming, once it happened I don't think that people could really believe that they did it," De Matteo says. "She was so innocent and you see that family in a whole different light now, that they would actually even do that to her. Now you know what kind of animals they really are."

Still, months later, the actress has some problems that Adriana left the house without a gun. "I could've shot him," she says. "I wouldn't believe that she would have left that house without a gun. She wasn't that stupid."

Meanwhile, speculation continues as TV viewers didn't actually see Adriana get shot. "It's non-stop, but no one knows if she's dead. Sometimes I don't know because David is so crazy you never know. But I believe that she's dead. Steve Van Zant says it in a very funny way. He says, 'What do you think I was doing out there? Shooting squirrels?'"

In addition to "Joey," De Matteo can also be seen alongside Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne in the upcoming crime drama "Assault on Precinct 13," opening in theaters nationwide on Wednesday, Jan. 19.