(2 of 2)
This is not always an easy task for sitcom stars. This spring's upcoming independent ensemble comedy Eulogy, in which Romano plays a sleazy son arguing over his father's inheritance opposite Zooey Deschanel and Hank Azaria, got less than stellar reviews at Sundance. But this week's romantic comedy Welcome to Mooseport is where he really fears he's going to be judged. "What if it just does abysmally? Is that a word? What if it's like my golf game today? What if people not only don't go--what if they protest?" he worries. "It's a good movie, but it's not knock-down funny. It wound up being more of a sweet movie. I already told the cast [of Raymond], 'I'm inviting you to the premiere, but I'm politely asking you not to come.' I don't need the pressure of going to work the next day and them making fun of me."
The reviewers, he's sure, are going to take him apart. "I'm the highest-paid a_______ on TV. That builds contempt. I'd hate me," says Romano, who makes $40 million a year in salary alone from the show. He took a lot of time choosing his first movie role (not counting the voice of the mammoth in the animated Ice Age). His main concern was finding a character close enough to his sitcom persona that he could nail it and please his TV audience but still different enough to be interesting. In Mooseport, a formulaic romantic comedy (he's going to be right about the critics), he plays a plumber in Maine who runs for mayor against the former U.S. President (Gene Hackman), who is stealing his girlfriend (Maura Tierney). "People will say it's not much of a stretch, but I think he's different. He doesn't have any gray in his hair," he says. "To buy me as a romantic lead, we needed special effects."
Mooseport's director, Donald Petrie (Miss Congeniality, Grumpy Old Men), says Romano often redid scenes to knock the Ray Barone out of his performance. "Where he was at his most awkward was if a scene required him to be emotional or tender or kiss," says Petrie. Romano, in fact, names kissing as the area he most hopes to improve upon. "I wanted to kiss another woman. Morally. Without stepping out of the boundaries of the marriage I'm committed to. So when I got into the TV show, I found a legal loophole." If the screen career goes well, he says, he will give dramatic roles a shot. "Kissing a woman dramatically is better than comedically. I think you get tongue when it's dramatic."
Leaving the course, on his way to his therapy appointment, Romano can think only about all the things he shouldn't have said--about Mooseport not being as funny as his sitcom; about Dustin Hoffman, who was originally supposed to play the President, being an endless talker; about not getting his teeth cleaned until two years ago, when the hygienist had to do it in four visits; about his plan to yank his buddy King of Queens' Kevin James' shirt open at Pebble Beach to reveal his right breast. "I'm in trouble when this story comes out. I suck at golf, and I want to kiss other women. I love my wife! Put that in there," he says. "Now drop me off at the jewelry store."