Ray Romano
Before Ray Romano graced our television sets with\xa0Everybody Loves Raymond, he was a hustling stand-up comedian, hoping to break into television like his peers Jerry Seinfeld, Tim Allen, and Rosanne. He followed all the proper steps\u2014performing on late night television, selling out road gigs, and getting featured in HBO comedy specials\u2014but radio silence was all he got from the powers that be. After eleven years as a full-time stand-up, Ray realized, \u201cMaybe this acting thing just isn\u2019t meant to be.\u201d But that\u2019s exactly when he got offered the development deal that would turn into the hit show\xa0Everybody Loves Raymond, and make Ray not only the highest paid actor in sitcom history, but one of the most recognized people in the world.\n\nDespite all of his success and fame, Ray dealt with an unexpected identity crisis when\xa0Raymond\xa0ended. \u201cIt took about three months until the void smacked me in the head. It was this sense of, \u2018What now? Where\u2019s my passion? Where\u2019s my direction? What am I throwing all my energy into now?\u2019 I had this non-stop creative energy for nine years. And suddenly, I was empty.\u201d But working through the existential void turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It\u2019s what led to the creation of\xa0Men of a Certain Age, the show Ray co-wrote with his friend Mike Royce, and it led to a desire to flex his acting muscles in other, more dramatic areas.\n\nGetting people to see him as more than a sitcom actor was difficult, especially after spending nine years in the shoes of one character that was loosely based on himself. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to make everyone forget about my sitcom legacy, because I was proud of it, but my goal was to do what I wanted\u2014and what I wanted was to stick my little dramatic toe in there.\u201d Since he made that decision, he\u2019s evolved into a versatile and relatable dramatic actor with his work in projects like\xa0Parenthood,\xa0Vinyl,\xa0Get Shorty,\xa0The Big Sick, and most recently,\xa0Paddleton, opposite Mark Duplass.\n\nRay joins\xa0Off Camera\xa0to talk about the first and only time he was fired, how he turns real life into a comedic bit, and why it\u2019s so hard for some men to say, \u201cI love you.\u201d