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1/29/2004
"New Weekly" Chats with Ray Romano
New Weekly Chats with Ray Romano
Date:: May 1 2004
Source:: New Weekly Magazine, from Patriciaheatononline.com
NW: Everybody Loves Raymond is the in-flight entertainment on several airlines...
RR: I'm sorry.
NW: What’s it like for you?
RR: It's fun, unless it's an episode that you ... I don't like them all. So when it's one I'm not too happy with, then it's kind of hard.
NW: We heard you watch Survivor All-Stars. Is that your favourite reality TV show?
RR: Well, I like that, I like American Idol and I just got hooked on Average Joe. I can't not watch it. I just happened to click on it and I'm like, “What's this?” Then I saw these 18 guys getting off a bus, and this beautiful woman thought they were all gonna be studs, and I just saw these guys trying to impress her just by saying hello. You just see this real self-consciousness, and I just know – I’ve been there, you know.
NW: Were you an Average Joe?
RR: I'm flattered, because that's saying I'm not now. I mean, as far as dating and all that, yeah, I was. It’s almost ironic because you get a TV show and you get a little popularity, and you probably could be a little more successful in that area. But that boat has passed already.
NW: You won a fair maiden though.
RR: Yes.
NW: How did you do that if you were an Average Joe?
RR: I give my wife credit. When we're flying to Hawaii on a private jet, I say, “I gotta give you credit, you stuck it out. I was a super nobody, and you made an investment and there you go, yeah.”
NW: Weren’t you a bank teller when you met her?
RR: We were both tellers, yeah. We worked together for two years and then I left. And that's when I got the courage up to ask her out, because this way if she said no I didn't have to go to work and see her the next day.
NW: Were you ever robbed when you were a bank teller?
RR: Not as a teller, I was robbed as a gas station attendant. Yeah, I was robbed twice at gunpoint. In Queens.
NW: After the second time maybe you quit working there?
RR: I remember my mother kind of pressured me to give it up, yeah. “Go to a bank, this way when you're robbed it'll make the news.”
NW: Why did it take you so long to make the jump from TV to the movies?
RR: That's a compliment, but it's also saying, “You're old to be starting!” Because I never had an opportunity until I had a TV show. I was doing stand-up and then I got the TV show, and then the TV show became popular and then I had an opportunity to do film. I didn't say, “Well, I'm gonna hold off on film for a while.”
NW: Was it intimidating working opposite Gene Hackman?
RR: I worked with Hank Azaria on Eulogy (which releases in Australia in October) and he had worked with Gene. I asked what he was like. He said, “Good guy. Little soft spoken. Little shy maybe.” I thought, “That's gonna be trouble, because I don't talk much, and I'll think he doesn't like me unless he talks to me.” And he didn't say much at first, but then he was very nice and very generous to me. He commented on one scene, he said, “Hey, I really like what you did there”, and he shook my hand. Later that night I was on the Internet telling all my friends.
NW: This movie opens the door for a sequel. Would you come back?
RR: Does it really? Yeah, I'm open to it. I get to kiss Maura Tierney again, right, that's not bad.
NW: How has fame changed your life, other than making money?
RR: Well, I mean, it's hard to do some of the things that you used to do. There's different pressures now, you know? You get asked to do a lot of things. You have to say no a lot more, which is hard for me. I had to realise that you can't please everybody all the time and that’s a hard thing for me. That's what my whole thing is, trying to please everybody. But I'm not complaining. It's also great to be in a position where you can help people. The littlest things, too. You sign a script and send it to a charity, and they’re ecstatic.
NW: Has it changed you personally?
RR: I think I'm just as neurotic as I was before – it's just at different levels. Before I would think my cab driver hates me. Now I think my limo driver hates me. It's the same thing.
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