Ray Romano Says Martin Scorsese Had ‘No Idea’ Who He Was While Casting Him, Despite 9 Years of ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ Fame: ‘It Was a Blessing’
variety.comZack Sharf Digital News Director Ray Romano starred in one of television’s biggest sitcoms for 9 seasons and 210 episodes, but apparently Martin Scorsese was never watching “Everybody Loves Raymond.” During a recent interview on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast (via IndieWire), Raymond said that Scorsese had no idea who he was when casting him in the HBO series “Vinyl.” “Scorsese did the pilot and I had to go on tape for him,” Romano said. “The cool thing was, I went on tape and the response we got back was, ‘Yeah, Marty likes it.
He’s in the running. And Marty wants to know who he is. He’s never seen him,’ And my agent was like, ‘So he’s never seen the show?’ And they go, ‘No, no, no, he doesn’t know who the guy is,’ which was a blessing because he didn’t have to erase the sitcom character from his mind.” Romano continued, “I can buy that, that Martin Scorsese doesn’t watch television.
So when he hired me, he liked what he saw.” It’s hard to believe anyone in entertainment in the late 1990s and early 2000s wouldn’t know who Romano is given the staggering success of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” which aired on CBS from 1996 to 2005.
The show won 15 Emmys during its run, including 10 for acting, and spent five seasons as one of the top 10 most-watched shows on television. “Vinyl,” which Scorsese co-created along with Mick Jagger, Rich Cohen and Terence Winter, centered on a troubled music studio in the 1970s.
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