Script by Eric
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnnan6zjNys
ROMANO: Well, now!
OPRAH: So when you left TV – hey, good to see you again! –
ROMANO: Yeah! Thank you.
OPRAH: When you left television – this new series looks very funny.
ROMANO: Oh, thank you. Thank you very much, yeah.
OPRAH: That scene that we were just looking at about looking in the mirror – have you done that yourself?
ROMANO: Ah, yes. A lot of that stuff is, you know – a lot of stuff in Raymond was from real life in the sitcom form, and a lot of stuff from this is from real life. But, yeah, that's kind of when I knew middle age was hitting, where, you know, men don't [GARBLED]...
OPRAH: Do you use the word “middle.” I used to be – I didn't like the word “middle.”
ROMANO: Yeah
OPRAH: Like “middle age.”
ROMANO: I just used it. Yeah.
OPRAH: I know, but the show's called Men of a Certain Age because...
ROMANO: Men of a Certain Age. Yeah. Middle age is even being a little generous because, assuming, I guess I gotta live to 102 for this to be middle age. But yeah, I've caught my – that's when I knew middle age was hitting – or whatever that – I caught my ass in the mirror and I'm like – because men don't do that. We don't inspect the...every once in awhile you catch it and I was like, that's not my ass. That's--
OPRAH: But that is such a great line, though. You look in the mirror, you see yourself, you recognize yourself and then there's just a little part that you don't. That was really so right on.
ROMANO: That was a different kind of a look in the mirror.
OPRAH: Yeah, yeah.
ROMANO: I've done that also, yeah.
OPRAH: I also read that when you were ending Everybody Loves Raymond that you realized for, after awhile that you were depressed and even saw a therapist. Is that true?
ROMANO: Wow! All right, since we're on the show, well, I was seeing a therapist for a long time before that. But when the show ended, my therapist said to me – it was weird; he was very perceptive – he said, when the show was ending he said, “Do you want to start coming twice a week?” No, seriously. And I said, “No. You know, I have a hard enough time thinking of stuff to say once a week.” And then three or four months after Raymond ended, I said, “Yeah, let's start going twice a week.” He knew this was a big change that was gonna happen in my life, and it was, yeah. It was.
OPRAH: Why? Because it felt like –
ROMANO: Well, I was for nine years I was, this was kind of like an extended family of mine. Everybody, the cast, everybody – and I was kind of in a bubble. I was just – you know, all my energy was focused on this and my passion and overnight it was over. It was ust over, overnight. So all of a sudden there's this big void and what do I do next?
OPRAH: So were you, were you – you were the highest paid actor on television –
ROMANO: Easy!
OPRAH: Come on! Come on! Highest paid actor on television! It was worth $7 million an episode, is what I read.
ROMANO: It was somebody making a little bit more.
OPRAH: OK. But was that hard to walk away from? Was it hard to walk away from that?
ROMANO: You know, I mean, I hate talking about this, but it was financially – I wasn't driven financially at that point.
OPRAH: Absolutely.
ROMANO: I mean, how much money does my wife need, really? So it was more just walking away from the work, from the creative juice that I got every day working. I was doing that for nine years and I was doing stand-up for 11 years before that. So it was 20 years of working and creating stuff.
OPRAH: So, so, truth, honestly, you know, I don't make any decisions based on money either -- thank God, I don't have to –
ROMANO: Right.
OPRAH: – and I know that wasn't a money decision for you. So why get back into it. Because you, you know, are set for life, you're in syndication. People are still watching the show. Why come back to TV?
ROMANO: Well, I mean, eventually – first of all, it was fun to all of a sudden have this time to do stuff, to spend with my family, to be home. And you know, that was great and my wife liked it – for about a month. But then it – you know, I – some people – I don't want to say work is who I am, but some people feel more centered, more whole when they're, when they're producing and creating –
OPRAH: Creating, yes, absolutely.
ROMANO: – and I guess that's kind of where I felt I was, yeah.
OPRAH: Because you wanted to get back in the game.
ROMANO: You know, I was here when I was leaving the game and now I'm here when I'm getting back in the game, yeah.
OPRAH: We'll be right back with Ray. Back in a moment.
4:33
VIDEO CLIP
DRIVER: I lost two pounds peein' this morning. Two pounds.
PASSENGER: Oh, here we go again.
DRIVER: I swear to God – two pounds.
PASSENGER: Look, I told you, you can't lose two pounds just by peeing.
DRIVER: I step on my digital scale totally naked before I pee and then again after I pee, and it's two pounds less. My record's two-and-a-half, so, yes you can.
PASSENGER: [Expletive deleted]
DRIVER: Why would I lie?
~~
OPRAH: That was a clip from Ray Romano's new show, Men of a Certain Age--
ROMANO: Yeah.
OPRAH: – which premieres on TNT Monday night, December 7th. You're back on Monday nights. It's your –
ROMANO: Yeah.
OPRAH: It's your lucky spot.
ROMANO: That was my night, yeah. We were on nine o'clock then. Taking on Monday Night Football again.
OPRAH: I hear that that clip too is based on a true story.
ROMANO: Yeah. That's true. On my – and just like Andre Braugher, my wife never would have believed me when I would tell her, you know?
OPRAH: Yeah.
ROMANO: So I told her, “Come and watch me.” She said, “I'm not watching you.” [GARBLED] But actually my record is three, three pounds. Yeah, but – yeah. Two-and-a-half just sounds funnier, so we went with two-and-a half. But yeah. Yeah, men, you know, I guess we're kind of anal that way. We kind of like numbers and competing and all that.
OPRAH: Uh-huh.
ROMANO: Yeah. But it's true.
OPRAH: Uh-huh. Ray's wife of 22 years, Anna, is here. They have four children. So what was it like having Ray around? He was saying you liked it for a month. I'm sure it was longer than that. What was it like having him home every day?
ANNA: I think he's lying. He took on an office after he left Everybody Loves Raymond. He took an office at Warner Brothers, said, “I'm going to the office.” Every day, “I'm goin' to work.” I don't know what he was doing. And he'd come home at night. He's checkin' his emails for hours. I, “Don't you do that at work?” “Oh, no. I went to the golf course.” So he was never home.
ROMANO: I don't have to sit through this.
OPRAH: You don't have to sit here and listen to this. You guys – didn't you guys go to Italy or something this summer and you have a theory about food?
ROMANO: Well, funny because you did a show about – this is another time where I thought “I'm hitting middle age” – is when your show was, I saw that your show was, “What your poop means”?
OPRAH: Yeah. And that was with Dr. Oz.
ROMANO: Yeah. I saw that one day and I went, “I'm gonna Tivo that one.” That's when I knew –
OPRAH: The fact that your Tivoing means, yes.
ROMANO: But in Italy I just find that the food is so fresh it's a much more pleasant experience. I don't want to get graphic here. It's – back me up, Anna!
ANNA: Ray! I'm sorry, Oprah.
OPRAH: We need to say this: Ray and Anna's oldest child, 19-year-old Ally, is here. Ally, where are you? Right there? OK. What does America not know about your dad?
ALLY: Well, this might be a little weird, but he really enjoys watching Youtube videos, but his favorites are watching national anthems.
ROMANO: That's another way of, you're reaching a certain age – I like to watch people singing the national anthem. I like to make myself –
OPRAH: Cry?
ROMANO: – cry, yeah. And my favorite is, I made her watch too. I said, “Come here.” And she doesn't cry.
OPRAH: “Come here; there's another national anthem.”
ROMANO: Smoky Robinson has one from 1986. Look it up. [GARBLED] It's my favorite one.
OPRAH: So you have three boys. Right?
ROMANO: Three boys!
OPRAH: Two of them are twin teenagers.
ROMANO: Yes.
OPRAH: How is that going?
ROMANO: Sixteen-year-old twin boys. They're driving now.
OPRAH: Oh, boy!
ROMANO: It's goin' all right, you know. My daughter, she started college. She went to Penn last year. The boys – the boys aren't goin' to Penn. They're going to the state pen, I think.