Former The Sopranos star Drea de Matteo had to talk co-star Steven Van Zandt into killing her character when he initially refused to be the guy pulling the trigger in the scene.

The actress, who portrayed Adriana La Cerva in over 60 episodes of the cult show, admits Bruce Springsteen's sideman did everything he could to avoid the fateful scene, even telling show creator David Chase he wasn't going to shoot his friend's character.

In a Reddit.com webchat with fans on Sunday (19Oct14), she recalls, "All of us had known already that my character was dying (and) Van Zandt was actually the most p**sed off about it, he didn't want to do it, he just didn't want to do it.

"I had to talk him into how awesome it was gonna be and how important it was (but) he didn't want to pull me out of that car, he didn't want to call me a c-word, he didn't want to shoot me in the head.

"When we shot that scene... confidentiality was king on the show, I mean, they were crazy over not letting any leaks get out, so we shot it two ways... One was... where I'm actually driving away, but you can tell in that scene that I'm daydreaming about driving away. We shot it that way as an alt (alternative), but the word on set was that we were shooting it that way to throw the crew off, and nobody knew the truth, myself included.

"He (Chase) was so secretive and protective of his story lines that he would go as far as shooting things twice and figuring out what he wanted to do in an editing room. So I didn't even know what my outcome would be until I was watching the show. I knew I was going away, but... I think I was the least upset of the actors there, about it, because I was never meant to be there as long as I was; I was a day player on the show. To have lived that life on a show and to have played a character that so many people loved... was a great part to play, so I was grateful. I was in support of how I died."