How Ray Romano Liberated Himself From “Sitcom Guy” Status

Eighteen years after Ray Romano’s final curtain call on his loosely autobiographical sitcom, the comedian still dutifully works from an office on the Burbank lot where he filmed eight of Everybody Loves Raymond‘s nine seasons. “When the show ended, Warner Bros. gave me this nice little office,” he says. “Not gave. I do pay rent.”

It’s not beyond the pale to assume these digs might be free. In addition to making an impressive bit of change for himself — Romano ranks among the highest-paid TV stars of all time — he gave the studio one of the last bona fide broadcast hits, one that endures in lucrative syndication and streaming deals. But such matters, says Romano, are no longer his concern. He’s spent the two decades since Raymond distancing himself from “sitcom guy,” tackling more dramatic parts (NBC’s Parenthood), supporting work (The Big Sick) and, most recently, the role of filmmaker. His directorial debut, Somewhere in Queens, which he co-wrote with Men of a Certain Age scribe Mark Stegemann, hits theaters April 21 after a run on the festival circuit. The movie isn’t unfamiliar territory for Romano — a window into a boisterous Italian American family in the tri-state area, albeit one more melancholy than Raymond‘s. But the roots of his two-hander with Laurie Metcalf are just as personal. He found inspiration in the extended family of his wife of 35 years and mother to his four adult children, Anna.

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When Somewhere in Queens premiered at Tribeca last year, you said the run-up to the shoot gave you chest pains to the point of needing to see a cardiologist. Why were you nervous?

I don’t have the hubris to go into anything with confidence, even to this day. No matter what I’m doing, showbiz-wise, I’m pretty neurotic and insecure. When I’m in New York, I do stand-up at my club — the Comedy Cellar. And there are nights where I’ll feel totally at ease and there’s no trepidation about going onstage, but there’s usually still some very small percentage of it there.

What do you think caused it here?

I’ve never been the guy that answers every question. Every day, there are a hundred questions and there are a hundred people working and waiting for you to make a decision. That’s intimidating. So yes, I did get chest pains on day one of prep. And we had nine weeks of prep, so I called up my agent that night and said, “I can’t do it.” I couldn’t see nine weeks of this angst and not being able to sleep. I did have to go to my cardiologist and get on the treadmill. And then I got the clean bill and I was like, “OK, I can put that aside now.” But that didn’t make me less anxious.

What did?

It was anxiety until “Action.” I don’t want to say it all went away when we started filming, but at that point I just didn’t have time for it. I’d jumped off the cliff. And once I realized the actors were all great to work with, this fear I had of not knowing how to talk to them went away.

You’ve been acting for over 30 years. Why did you think you wouldn’t be able to talk to actors?

I look back on how lucky we were to have the cast we had on Everybody Loves Raymond. But there are always days where people don’t get what you’re going for. They need the note. [On Raymond,] I was on set rehearsing with them all day, and the writers were in the writers room with Phil Rosenthal, who was running the show. So if it was just a casual little tweak here and there, OK. But if someone was really off base, I’d have Phil tell them. (Laughs.) I never took on that all-encompassing role before.

How do you feel about having a theatrical release? Heartfelt comedies tend to go straight to streaming these days.

I’m going back to my cardiologist. I’m getting chest pains again. I mean, it’s scary! We’ve been at four festivals now, and they couldn’t have gone better. But I’m not naive. I know festival audiences. The real test is the public who comes and pays money to watch the movie.

Speaking of money, do other comics ever give you a hard time for being one of the last stand-ups to get an incredibly lucrative, long-running sitcom based on your material? Those deals are gone.

There are a couple of people still doing it, right? Like, Larry David; Pete Davidson’s coming up [with Bupkis]. I did three episodes of that, and it’s going to be really funny. But I guess they’re not network. Nobody gives me shit for it. But [Raymond co-star] Brad Garrett makes fun of me and my salary in his act. I don’t know. My wife gets all the money. I get clean clothes and an apple every morning.

Did your Raymond salary impact the offers you got when it ended? That’s a high quote to follow.

When the show ended, I did Men of a Certain Age for two years. Then that got canceled. So, I was unemployed and wanted to stretch my dramatic chops — or see if I had any. I was a fan of Parenthood at the time, and I emailed Jason Katims and half-jokingly said, “I’m available if you find anything for a old Italian guy.” He emailed me back right away and said, “We can’t afford you.” I said, “Whatever my agent tells you my quote is, talk to me and I will make it work.” About a week later, my agent called me and went, “Ray, did you tell Jason Katims you would work for little money?”

You eventually agreed that you should take the job.

I went on Parenthood for very modest money, if you’re going to compare it to Raymond. But I got three seasons of Parenthood, and it got people to see me differently. From that, I got The Big Sick and The Irishman — although The Irishman was another story. But all those things add up. When you’re the lead of a sitcom and you’re trying to do something different or move away from that, it takes a long time to get people to see you as anything else. So, I think that a very smart thing I did was not worry about the money after Everybody Loves Raymond.

What was different about The Irishman?

Well, Vinyl came before The Irishman. I didn’t have to audition for The Irishman. But for Vinyl, I had to go on tape because Marty [Scorsese] had never seen me. And I don’t mean that he’d never seen my show. We’d assumed he’d never seen my show, but [the casting director] said, “No, he doesn’t know who you are.” It was probably better that he just saw the tape and didn’t have to erase the sitcom guy from it.

That’s got to be a strange confidence boost, to have Scorsese essentially “discover” you in your 50s.

When I tell people that story, they’re like, “Oh, come on. He had to have seen the show.” No! He’s Martin Scorsese. He knows every movie that’s ever been, but he’s not watching sitcoms. I really have to get my agent credit for putting me up for Vinyl … even though he wanted me to take more money for Parenthood.

Vinyl‘s been in the conversation again because it was one of the shows that HBO Max pulled from streaming. Does it give you concern that the things you made in the past could just vanish?

It’s not on HBO anymore?

It’s not. It was one of the shows they pulled after the Warner Bros. Discovery merger.

I’m not happy if that’s true. That was probably the saddest cancellation I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a few now … Men of a Certain Age, Vinyl, Get Shorty, Made for Love. They’re all great, and there are people doing great work in all of them, but that was the most fun. I mean, it was the ’70s in New York. I was doing scenes with a David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Elvis. I was snorting coke and having threesomes! Ugh. That show wasn’t everybody’s thing, but I think some of those episodes are unbelievably great.

I hate to ask you the reboot question, but this trend is not going away. Have you talked about revisiting Raymond in some capacity, or is it a non-starter since we no longer have Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts?

We lost Peter pretty quickly after the show ended. But before we lost Doris, when that topic came up, Phil and I weren’t keen on doing a reboot — even a one-and-done. I think Phil has tried to get a reunion together, something like what they did with Friends. That would be great, if there’s demand for it. But I don’t think I’d ever want to act as that character again. I don’t want us to have to follow ourselves. And are there any good reboots? There are probably some — but without Peter and Doris, it would be a shame to even try.

When your agent brings you an offer or a script or any for-hire work these days, is there a throughline to the kinds of roles that you’re offered?

They’re definitely older. There aren’t a lot of times when I say, “Really, they want me to play this 40-something?” (Laughs.) It’s opening up a little, though. I’m not just getting comedic things and broad things. I think I’ve aged into this area where now I’m playing the father of the 30-year-old. I play this older guy who kind of mentors Channing Tatum’s character in this movie about Apollo 11 [Greg Berlanti’s Project Artemis]. Cristin Milioti played my daughter in Made for Love. A little bit more is coming my way than 10 years ago. But I’m kind of accepting that if a great role comes along, it’s not necessarily going to be the lead. And that’s OK. I’ll write my own movie for that. We’re trying to write another one now.

In prepping for our conversation, I learned that you lost on the first season of Star Search — yet no evidence of your performance can be found online, which is conspicuous. Is that your doing?

It’s not my doing, but I’m glad it’s been done. I was one-and-done on the first season of Star Search. I got one and three-quarter stars — and they each gave everybody two stars just for showing up. Even if they hated you, they would give you a two. But when the four judges read their scores, I got … two, two, two and one.

Was that a blow?

My wife was pregnant with our first child and due probably four weeks later — so I’d flown out from New York for the taping. I was supposed to stay in L.A. for another two days with my manager, but I was so deflated that I just went home. My wife’s water broke that day, and she had the baby 24 hours later. So it was kind of a blessing that Geechy Guy beat me. I’ll never forget that guy.

What’s your relationship with stand-up these days?

Whenever I’m in New York, if I have a free night, I’ll go to the Comedy Cellar. Oddly enough, I’ve been living in L.A. for over 25 years, and I’ve been onstage here maybe a dozen times. I don’t know why. It just doesn’t feel like home. But I do stand-up in Vegas, too. I do about five or six weekends a year at The Mirage. I never want to stop doing stand-up. I just wish I had more time. Then I could write new material.

There’s still a huge market for specials. Do you have another one in you?

Yeah, if I had another solid hour. But I did the hour four years ago, so that material’s all gone. Material comes very slowly to me now. I don’t generate material like these other guys. I have a lot of things written down, but unless you go onstage and work it out, it just stays written down. If I seriously wanted to do another special, I would need to spend four or five months in New York and go on every night.

Who makes you laugh?

Nate Bargatze cracks me up. We’ve golfed a couple times. Also Sebastian Maniscalco, who’s in my movie, Brian Regan, Anthony Jeselnik and Dave Attell. Larry Miller, who came up with [Jerry] Seinfeld and those guys, is one of my favorites of all time. He does a bit called “The Five Levels of Drinking.” YouTube that one.

Tell me about a time where you felt like you bombed.

Obama’s inauguration. They had nine inaugural balls that night, and ABC asked me to do five minutes of inauguration material. There were 400 or 500 people there, standing around with drinks. Joe Biden had just spoken and they were all waiting for Beyoncé to go on. It wasn’t the greatest experience for me. I mean, it was fine. I smiled and pretended people were listening and laughing. I got to meet Obama. That was awesome. But, back in my hotel room, I was just beating myself up because I didn’t feel it went well. And then Garry Shandling called me to tell me he loved the material. I wasn’t even friends with him. We’d exchanged numbers like 10 years earlier. But I think he knew that I was probably not in the best mood right then, and he was just reaching out as a fellow comedian. I loved that gesture. He made me feel better.

Why did we ever turn inaugural balls into variety shows?

And why did I have to go on while they were getting the other stage ready for Beyoncé? It was wild.

Well, you know who else lost on Star Search? Beyoncé.

No! Did she? Wow. That’d be a cool list to have: “The losers of Star Search.”

It exists, and it’s perhaps more impressive than the list of winners.

I only got 90 seconds! You don’t have time to show who you are in 90 seconds. But do you know who the grand champion of the comedy division was during that first year? Brad Garrett. We had the grand champion and the first-time loser on the same successful sitcom.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

This story first appeared in the April 12 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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