EXCLUSIVE: Mattea Conforti Talks The Many Saints of Newark, her Career, & More with BB
From her very first role as Matilda on Broadway to playing a young Janice Soprano in HBO Max’s The Many Saints of Newark, Mattea Conforti is slowly taking over Young Hollywood. To celebrate the release of her new film, we got the chance to speak with the amazing star.
During our chat, we talked her new movie, playing Janice Soprano, Broadway, her family and so much more. Check out what she had to say below.
Did you feel a lot of pressure when you landed the role of Janice?
“If anything, I got more pressure from my family. They were all like, ‘We’re huge fans of The Sopranos. You can’t mess this up. You’re playing Janice.’ But no, it was such a welcoming cast and a welcoming crew. Everybody really helped each other out behind the scenes, so I didn’t feel any sense of pressure from anybody.”
Did you find yourself turning to the original show for inspiration?
“At the time, when I was filming, I was 12, so my mom didn’t let me watch the original show, but my parents helped me out. They gave me an idea of how to portray Janice and what Janice’s personality was like, so they definitely helped me on that. But other than that, I went in to it with a clear mind and just interpreted her my own way.”
Now that you’re a little bit older, have you seen any episodes of The Sopranos?
“It’s definitely on my list. I’m not a huge fan of gore, so I’ll be watching it soon. I’ll make myself watch it. I feel like I have to now.”
You’ve been on Broadway and now you’re transitioning to more television and movie roles. Do you have a preference?
“They’re so different to compare really. Broadway is a lot of exaggerated movements, facial expressions to reach everybody in an audience and you obviously get that live feedback every night. In TV, everything is not as big. It’s smaller movements, smaller facial expressions, but you get that chance to do separate takes, I can split up the scene separately, but I just think they’re too different to compare. I love doing both.”
You can read the rest of our interview under the jump. Make sure to check out The Many Saints of Newark when it is released to HBO Max on October 1.
Photo credit: Mary Kate Gutierrez
For you, which one would you say was more challenging?
“In my opinion, I think Broadway, just because you have to memorize the whole thing, the whole two-and-a-half hours, right before you go on stage every night, and you don’t have any retakes where, when you’re on set, you can just say, ‘Oh, I forgot my line, can we redo this real quick?’ But on Broadway, everything is live and you have to really be in character.”
For Many Saints of Newark, did you find yourself falling back to some of the things you learned while on Broadway, to bring Janice to life, or did you fall more back into your roles from Power and NOS4A2?
“Well, Power and NOS4A2 helped me with the experience. They prepared me for what I should expect on set, and how things were going to be run . I don’t think I really stepped back into Broadway just because the two are so separate in my mind that I just can’t even mix them up.”
What would say was the most challenging part of bringing to life Janice?
“I think nailing her personality, because obviously she’s a more intense character, a bit on the crazy side. But I think as a young kid, she doesn’t have all of those personality traits yet and I still wanted to portray her as this innocent little girl, but obviously still a bit on the crazy side.”
You play a younger Janice in the movie, but you are not the only one playing Janice. Alexandra Intrator plays Janice as well. Did you two have any form of conversations about the character while you guys were filming this?
“Yeah, we did. We were like, ‘Oh my God, how do we look so similar. This is so weird.’ But yeah, she’s so nice and we get along so well. We were actually talking at the premiere saying how it’s been so long and how we haven’t seen anybody in a long time.”
How was the premiere?
“It was such an exciting night, truly. It really gets you back into thinking, ‘This is what I did before COVID’, and just seeing everybody, how happy they were to get back and the excitement and the intensity in the air, it was just a surreal moment.”
Did it feel weird seeing everyone after so long, because as you said, you filmed this when you were 12 and now you’re older. To them, it’s got to be like, ‘Oh my God, you’ve grown up'”.
“It was, because everybody looks so much older and everybody’s aged so much. Even Will Young, who plays young Tony, he looks so much older than how we both looked, when we both filmed. We’re both the same age, he was also 12, so we both changed drastically. But it was so good to reconnect with everybody.”
Do you ever find yourself getting up in the morning wondering how you can balance everything?
“You know, surprisingly, I don’t even think I’ve come to the realization of that yet. I think that’s still yet to come. Even during shows when I was so young, I didn’t even realize what I was doing every night, how big of a deal it was. I was just thinking, ‘Oh man, I’m going on stage. Yay.’
What is next for you?
“Well, right now I’m excited for everything to open up again, because there’s not as much opportunities as there would have been before COVID obviously, but I’m definitely open to TV, movies, theater, any opportunity that comes my way, of course, but I am getting busier with auditions. I’m also keeping busy with high school, sports, all that quote-unquote, normal kid stuff.”
I now go back to my earlier question. How are you balancing all of this?
“I guess I’m used to it, because I was eight when I started Matilda. That was my first real big gig. And that was such a challenge to balance school with, but I’ve always wanted to stay in a public school and wanted to stay with my friends, just to keep my friends with me throughout this whole journey, to keep that sense of normalcy. But it was a lot easier once the pandemic hit, I could focus on school and take a bit of a break.”
Did you find yourself doing a new hobby while in the pandemic or just catching up on old TV shows? What did you do besides school?
“Definitely a lot of binging. I actually taught myself how to play piano a bit.”
Is there any role, whether it be on Broadway or TV/movie, that you would love to do? Is there something that you have your eyes on, that you would love to someday do?
“Of course, I would love to do anything that comes my way. As you’ve seen, I’ve done a lot of horror stuff. Many Saints of Newark, my parts were a little bit comedic in a certain way, but I’ve done a wide range of things. So anything that comes my way, I’m happy to do and will be grateful for.
Obviously, you’re extremely, extremely busy. What do you like to do to just make sure you’re checking in with yourself and staying healthy?
“I’m on my high school’s cheerleading team, so I tumble. I’m a flyer, actually. So I do that in the fall and then year-round, I do lacrosse, which is a fun sport. And I dance. I haven’t been dancing a whole lot, because the studio is just starting to open up again and everybody’s getting back into the feel of things, but taking singing lessons, acting lessons, just doing it all.”
Was it your parents that made you want to get into acting or something else?
“Actually no-one really. I’m so blessed to have the family I have, how supportive they are, but no-one really pushed me into acting or singing.”
How did you then get into acting?
“Originally, one day we [her family] were at the beach and we met my parents friends down there, who said to my parents, you should see an agent in New York for her dancing. So we were like, ‘Okay, what’s an agent?’ I guess we could go and stuff. So we went to an agency and we showed them a dancing video of me, and they were like, ‘Okay, we’ll call you back in a few and we’ll see if we have any available roles for her’. Then they called us about an open call for Matilda and I went in and they were like, ‘We know that you can dance, but you’re going to have to sing if you want to get into the ensemble or have a role in the show’. I think I sang ‘Tomorrow’ from Annie, and I was practicing in my shower the night before. And we went in and I auditioned and then six months later, they called me back for the role of Matilda.”
You’re currently going to public school. Is college in your future? Or are you thinking, once you get done high school, you’re really going to jump in and turn your focus to your acting career.
“I think as of now, I want to go to college and maybe want to see what else is out there before I make up my mind about acting. Aacting is such a 50/50 business. It’s a great business to be in. It’s just, you never know what’s going to happen. You never know when something’s going to happen. So I think right now I’m planning to go to college and look at schools, but if anything were to happen before, I mean, college is out the window.”
For you, where do you draw your inspiration from? Is it from other actors and actresses or just straight from your family?
“I think both. My family is such an expressive family. So that definitely helped, especially with Many Saints of Newark, because I grew up with a very Italian family. So when I went on set, I was like, why am I with my family on set? But I also think watching movies and TV shows and getting inspiration from there, definitely helped me, because I didn’t have any formal training before this. So that’s where I got all my inspiration from.”
Is there someone you would love to work with in the future, that you haven’t worked with already?
“I think Zendaya. I would love to work with Zendaya.”
During your career you have tried so many different genres and may different acting roles, which isn’t typical for a star your age. Where does the need to want to try everything come from?
“My parents have always been like, we don’t want you to just be focused on one thing. We want you to be able to say you have experience in other things and you can get inspiration from other things. We don’t want you just to focus on one topic, because you never know what you’re going to miss out on, because you won’t get another chance to redo it. So might as well try everything and fail at everything, but at least you’ve tried it.”
With only a few months left in the year, what are you looking forward to do?
“I’m looking forward to definitely being with my friends and going to school, but I’m also looking forward to getting back into the business and lots of opportunities are coming in. So hopefully something will come up very soon and I’m just excited to get back into the field of everything.”