A dramatic turn for Ray Romano
Photo credit: TNT/Art Streiber | A scene from the new TNT television program, "Men of a Certain Age," about three longtime, male friends, to premiere December 7, 2009. Here, the three stars pose in a studio, Andre Braugher, Ray Romano and Scott Pakula.
Ray Romano is a success story. The Forest Hills stand-up hit fame on David Letterman's show, then hit the jackpot when Letterman's company developed the sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" around Romano's family-man routines. After its nine smash CBS seasons and lucrative syndication afterlife, Romano has big bucks and show-biz clout - yet still suffers the typical insecurity that makes stand-ups run (at the mouth).
He and fellow "Raymond" scribe Mike Royce are shaping Romano's new TNT hour dramedy "Men of a Certain Age" (premiering Monday at 10) around the midlife crises of a divorcing father named Joe (Romano) and his two equally at-sea fortysomething friends (Scott Bakula, Andre Braugher).
How do you relate to an undirected guy like Joe after nailing your dreams at both home [married for 22 years, Ray and wife Anna have four kids ages 11 to 19] and work?
Well, when the show ends [its run], you think, 'What's next to feel fulfilled in that whole creative way, doing what I wanna do?' It's a big void. You feel like you're coming out of a submarine. I live in L.A., the kids are 10 years old, I'm 47 - what am I gonna do now? It was a bit of a limbo zone to me.
And that's where Joe is at?
He thought he'd open a party store and he's good at it, and it's good to be good at something, but it's also good to hope for something else. He originally wanted to be a golfer, and he kind of let that go.
Now he's struggling to let his marriage go, to live alone, to connect with his kids. And you're in transition, too, shifting from the half-hour to the hour format.
I loved what I did. But I did it. And I wanted the excitement of actually doing something on film, where you can play every subtlety there is, and you can emote with a look of your eyes.
But don't viewers expect Ray Romano to be funny?
To be this age, and to be searching for something, comedy is not the way to tell that story. We were feeling the weight of that, so we're not gonna make light of it. But we always go to comedy, so there will be comedy in it. Doing comedy in drama, or drama in comedy, that's almost the best kind there is. Comedy that comes as a relief from all the drama is like telling jokes at a eulogy. You always get a big laugh.
