Antidepressants put ‘Sopranos’ star Bracco back in tune

The irony has not escaped Lorraine Bracco.

For five seasons as psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi on HBO’s “The Sopranos,” the actress has battled mob boss Tony Soprano’s mental demons.

But for a year and a half in real life, Bracco was fighting clinical depression with medication and therapy.

“If you break your leg, you have it fixed,” says Bracco, 50. “If you have a toothache, you go to the dentist.

But when it comes to mental health, she says, “People tend to think they can just get over it.”

Bracco is ready to talk about her fight with depression in hopes of knocking out some stigmas about antidepressants and their effects.

The mother of two went to drug manufacturer Pfizer in hopes of getting the word out.

She plans to do that with a Web site ( www.depressionhelp.com goes live on Tuesday) and a series of commercials.

“I don’t blame anything or anyone,” she says. “I think it was lack of education about medication.

“I thought if I need medication, I must be really sick.”

Bracco acknowledges she wasn’t feeling too keen after battling for custody of daughter Stella with ex-husband and actor Harvey Keitel, dealing with Stella’s juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and declaring bankruptcy after splitting with actor Edward James Olmos.

“I just had a lot of really big things that kept pounding me and I would let all these things rule my life instead of my dreams and wishes,” she says.

“I was doing everything. I was being a good mommy. The laundry was done. They had food. They were driven to school and extracurricular activities, but I was joyless in it. It just became a chore for me.”

Looking back, Bracco said, she was dealing with depression for more than a decade.

It wasn’t until 1997, after she’d been cast in “The Sopranos,” that she followed the suggestion of a friend to seek professional help.

“I was very afraid to go on any kind of medication because I was afraid it was going to dull me, which is not true,” says Bracco. “I think a lot of people think you’ll become a zombie.”

But antidepressants didn’t hinder her performance in “The Sopranos,” and she eventually escaped the depression.

“I was on the medication for a year and a half and went into the doctor’s office and said, ‘I don’t really need this anymore,’ ” said Bracco. “I haven’t been taking it for five years, six years.”

If the story stopped here, it would be a happy ending for Bracco.

She bought a house in the Hamptons. Stella’s in college. Bracco goes back to shooting the sixth season of “Sopranos” in April.

And she’s been dating a 30-year-old former Syracuse University basketball player, Jason Cipolla, for almost three years.

“A good relationship doesn’t hurt anybody – let’s be fair, younger or older,” Bracco says. “That’s been very nice for me.”

The birthday bunch

Actor Michael Caine is 72. Composer-conductor Quincy Jones is 72. Comedian Billy Crystal is 57. Actor Adrian Zmed is 51. Actress Tamara Tunie (“Law & Order: SVU”) is 46. Actress Penny Johnson Jerald (“24”) is 44. Actress Elise Neal (“The Hughleys”) is 35. Actor Chris Klein is 26. Singer-keyboardist Taylor Hanson (Hanson) is 22.