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Lorraine Bracco could have used the therapeutic help of Jennifer Melfi, the psychiatrist she portrays on HBO's The Sopranos, long before she was cast in the acclaimed Mob drama.
"The irony has not escaped me," says Bracco, whose memoir, On the Couch (Putnam, $25.95), arrives today.
Over The Sopranos' six seasons, Bracco's Melfi has tried to help conflicted Mob boss Tony Soprano deal with rage, depression and both his Mafia and personal families.
"I've always felt there was an underlying relationship between me and Melfi," Bracco says. "There are many things she said that I thought I should be saying to myself."
Bracco, 51, had depression and low self-esteem during her relationship with actor Harvey Keitel, with whom she had a daughter, Stella, in 1985.
After the pair split, they fought a tumultuous custody battle that lasted six years. But Bracco realized she needed help to overcome her problems even as The Sopranos re-energized a career that had largely stalled after her Oscar-nominated turn as a mobster's wife in 1990's Goodfellas.
"I wasn't really taking care of myself. I was emotionally bankrupt, a condition that matched my financial state," she writes in Couch. "Unfortunately, I didn't emerge into the light of a bright new day, but into a gray gloom of exhaustion and despair. I wasn't really myself."
Bracco's battle with depression and her tabloid-fodder custody battle weighed heavily on her relationship with actor Edward James Olmos, whom she married in 1994 and later divorced.
Antidepressants and 18 months of therapy helped Bracco deal with her tumult and understand her past relationships with men. Her salary for The Sopranos helped erase nearly $2 million in legal bills from her custody dispute.
Couch candidly explores her relationships and traces Bracco's rise from the awkward, gangly pre-teen who was voted ugly duckling by classmates to her 10-year career as a Paris-based fashion model and eventual rise in Hollywood.
It also details how Bracco spurned Sopranos creator David Chase's efforts to cast her as Tony Soprano's wife, Carmela. (The role went to Edie Falco.)
Tired of being typecast, Bracco went for the Melfi role, even though her agent feared she was turning down a role that would help revitalize her career and steady her precarious financial footing.
"I loved the fact that it was a character that you rarely see on screen: an educated Italian woman," Bracco says.
Bracco says she hopes Couch will help others who have depression and problems with their self-esteem.
"My main goal is to help people see when (stuff) hits the fan, you can still come out of it on top -- brighter, stronger and more powerful," she says.
Bracco acknowledges that this season's Sopranos, which wrapped Sunday, wasn't a universal fan favorite: "You can't please everybody." Still, Bracco is dreading the series' end in 2007. Final episodes begin filming next month.
"I don't know how the show will end," she says. "I really don't want to. My big regret is that it will end."
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