"You imbue this persona to these people that are celebrities, and then after you get to spend time with them, they're just people."
The major thing about Netflix's No Good Deed that appealed to Ray Romano was that it was unlike anything he'd done before. "I read about three scripts, and at the end of each there was a little twist, a little turn, [and] it was funny." The dramedy series follows families looking to buy a home owned by Paul and Lydia Morgan (Romano and Lisa Kudrow). "You can tell a person's good or bad, not from one incident, [but] from overall. We get to see that these are good people going through bad situations." The series uses comedic actors in sometimes-dramatic situations (yet still humorous). "You know both of us, Lisa and I, from sitcoms—her sitcom was much more well-known than ours, but we have our fans, too. If they allow us to show this other [heavier] side, I think it's very effective." Romano, who shot to fame with Everybody Loves Raymond, says he still gets intimidated working with celebrities like Kudrow. "You imbue this persona to these people that are celebrities and icons and whatnot, and then after you get to spend time with them, they're just people."
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Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.
What about this story appealed to you?
I read about three scripts, and at the end of each script there was a little twist, a little turn, it was funny. Also, there were characters, but it was still real, it was still grounded. And I met with the creator, Liz [Feldman], and she kind of talked to me about the arc of the show. I knew of her other show, Dead to Me, and I knew that tone, and I knew this tone was going to be the same, where it walks that line from comedic and a little bit heightened, but still real and still dramatic. And then we discussed the rest of the cast and everything felt right.
The story structure is also interesting, especially how the characters are introduced. Did that stand out to you?
Yeah. I mean, the story itself is interesting and clever and intriguing, but the way she writes adds another element to it. The flashbacks. It's a whodunit. It's a mystery, it's a comedy. It all made for an interesting read, and I knew the work she had done with Dead to Me, I knew she was really good at [getting that to camera]. I just felt like I haven't done a show like this. I think I'm in good hands here.
And she's also using funny people to add to the drama of the show, or the emotion of a moment. Do you think comedic actors actually bring more weight to the drama?
Well, if you have the right actor and the right person, even though they're known for comedy. It's a cliche to say that the comedy comes from a dark place, or there's pain and suffering underneath it, because every actor has that, dramatic, comedic, they're no different. That's the juxtaposition, you're expecting light, and then to get moved and hit by something that is poignant and heavy, I guess it lands even harder. You're a little caught off guard that this actor you know from comedy can do that to you. And you know both of us, Lisa and I, both coming from sitcoms—her sitcom was much more well known than ours, but we have our fans, too—and that's what people know us from. I think that if they allow us to show this other side, I think it's very effective.
Considering your background in comedy, do you ever struggle with trying to fill the space with funny instead of letting the emotion or the drama fill that space?
Maybe I would have in my early days of acting and whatnot, but now I almost find the opposite. Now I almost find, "Oh, they're going to want to goof it up, because it's me," or whatever. So I really like when it just calls for someone to trust that this is real and it's going to be what it is, and hopefully I can get there. But I do know what you're talking about, because when I write now—like I wrote a movie that we did three years ago, and I'm writing one now—and I want the drama there, but every exchange, my instinct is to find out, "What's the funny line? What's the funny?" But I think once I'm acting, you do have to fight against it. If people watch, let's take Will Ferrell, for example, who is a great actor, but he really has to get people to put the Will Ferrell they know aside and just take this for what it is and not expect a funny little turn. So my instincts are to not go there when it's a dramatic scene.
The combination of you and Lisa is so perfect, even down to how you deliver lines.
Every actor has their cadence, but you still embody the character you're playing. Jack Nicholson talks a certain way, but you still see a different character there. So yes, you may hear a Ray Romano line delivered a certain way, or Lisa Kudrow, but I think once you watch the essence of this person she's doing, you're accepting that it's a different character, and she pulls it off so great. I'm always nervous and intimidated. Friends taped two stages down from where Everybody Loves Raymond taped. When we started, they were in year three, I think? They were the biggest thing in the world. We were in such awe of them. And it's funny, because when I told Lisa, after we had been working together for a couple of weeks, I said, "How funny is that, that we were both on the same lot, three stages away?" And she went, "We were?" [laughs] So she didn't know. But in her defense, she was a fan of our show, too, and she was quoting episodes. I thought she was just making it up, but I could tell she was being real. But the intimidation went away once we started working and as it always does, you imbue this persona to these people that are celebrities and icons and whatnot, and then after you get to spend time with them, they're just people.
You mentioned this is different from anything you've done before. How is it different?
It's funny, because as we were doing the first couple episodes, I would comment to Liz, the showrunner, I go, "Boy, he's being a dick, isn't he?" I knew where the show was going, and I knew what was going on underneath, but the audience doesn't know a lot until later on. So that was appealing to me, that this guy is a person with flaws, and he's in a bad place, and he's not the nicest guy at the moment, but he's dealing with a lot of things, and most of that is forgivable. And we do get to see that he is a good person under it. I've played some like those characters, but it's not what I'm known for, so I kind of liked it. I remember telling my agent, "My guy's doing some pretty sh**** things in episode three." And my agent was like, "Good. It's good for you to do that." But that's what was cool about the show, it takes you through this whole range of things that a person goes through. A person has a side that's a little like this, but it's understandable, you can tell a person's good or bad, not from one moment, not from one incident, from overall, throughout the whole show we get to see that these are good people going through bad situations.
You still do stand-up, which gives you a very specific voice. Do you ever feel your stand-up voice or tone coming out in your performances?
I don't know if it's what came first, the chicken or the egg, because I think one of my things that works for me in stand-up is I'm very conversational. There are different types of stand-up. There are character acts. There are guys who scream a lot and are bitter and raw, you know? And then there are just the natural talkers on stage. One of my favorite comics, Larry Miller, that's an example. He's just talking up there, and in reality, it sounds like he's just having a conversation with you, but he's done it 1,000 times. He is acting, but he's acting very natural. So that's what works for me in my stand-up, and that's what I'm drawn to, and I bring that to the acting. Now I don't know if I had become an actor first before a stand-up, would I have that quality to my acting and then tried stand-up and bring it [to that]? I don't know. But that's the way I just naturally perform as a stand-up. And it's the same with acting. I think it transfers over to the acting. I try to make everything sound realistic and natural.
Everybody Loves Raymond is still in syndication and very popular. But it also feels like a show we don't see much of on TV these days. Do you think that type of sitcom could happen on network TV today?
So what you're talking about is a multi-cam [sitcom] with a live audience. And the thing that's difficult about that genre, and that was really what the big transition from being on a multi-cam for nine years and then going to a single camera thing where you can be as subtle as you want, that's not really the case in front of a live audience. It's kind of like a play, and you need to amp it up a little, right? You need to be broad. So it's very hard to be broad in that sense and still have that appeal of not being over the top and cartoony and too broad, you know? And I think we did the best we could to keep it grounded and real. And you think back, how many sitcoms are like that? Seinfeld could pull it off, even Friends. And there are some of the older shows, Dick Van Dyke, and Mary Tyler Moore, where you do have to be big at moments, you have to play to the audience and play to the genre you're in, but you have to try to blend it in and keep it grounded and keep it real, and that's what we tried. Can it happen again? Yeah, I think it can. The writing has to be right. It's hard not to fall into that, when the live audience is there, it's hard to be disciplined enough to say, "Listen, we're going to do this, but it's still going to be subtle." And I think it can happen. But again, the other types of sitcoms that are over the top and are not grounded, those are appealing to people also. Those have audiences too, right?
Well, you and Phil Rosenthal certainly found that balance.
Listen, all the other ingredients have to come together. It's a little bit like catching it in a bottle. The actors have to be the right actor for it. Patty [Patricia] Heaton was the 50th actress we saw for that role. And when I watch [the show] now, I'm like, she's just so good. And Brad Garrett, when we wrote it, it was written based on my real brother, who was a 5-foot-10 police officer. And didn't have this hangdog, morose quality that Brad brought to it. We got lucky. We got lucky. Those are the things that have to happen. You have a great script, that's one of the most important things. But then you got to get lucky, too.
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