One of TV’s most admired actors, she is now playing Hillary Clinton on screen. She discusses overcoming addiction, her adoration for Sopranos co-star James Gandolfini and the pure joy of adopting two children

Edie Falco has never been the type of actor to demand entourages and encores. Fanfares and fuss are just not her bag, and she has little time for pretentious thespiness. When other actors talk about their “Process,” as she puts it – with a capital P – she thinks, “What are you talking about?!” With her open, thoughtful face and wide smile, she looks as if she could be your friend from the local coffee shop, as opposed to one of the most accoladed American actors of this century, having accumulated two Golden Globes, four Emmys and five Screen Actors Guild awards, plus a jaw-dropping 47 nominations. This impression of straightforwardness and – oh dreaded word – relatability has made her subtle performances of self-deceiving characters even more powerful. As the mob wife, Carmela, in The Sopranos, she could tell Tony (James Gandolfini) what she thought of him staying out all night with his “goomahs”, or mistresses, but she couldn’t admit to herself that he does much worse to fund the life she loves. Similarly, as Nurse Jackie, in the eponymous TV series, her scrubbed clean face and sensible short hair belied her character’s drug addiction.

So it feels extremely right that, when we connect by video chat, Falco, 58, is sitting – not in a fancy hotel room, or a Hollywood mansion, but in the endearingly messy basement of her New York house, where she lives with her son, 16, and daughter, 13. Power tools hang off the wall behind her, and she is leaning on a table strewn with what she describes as “God knows, some stuff”.