CONVERSATION WITH RAY ROMANO

We can’t think of a more enjoyable way to kick off Saturday morning at the festival than with a conversation with Ray Romano. There’s good reason why everybody loves Ray – for nearly 40 years, he’s entertained and engaged audiences in person, on television, and on the big screen.   

Ray began his career in 1984 as a stand-up comedian in New York. After his first appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman,” Ray was offered a development deal with Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants, which led to the creation of “Everybody Loves Raymond” for CBS. The show ran from 1996 to 2006 and remains one of the most popular and respected sitcoms in television history.  Ray won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in 2002, received Emmys in 2003 and 2005 for Outstanding Comedy Series, and shared a 2003 Screen Actors Guild Award with the show’s cast.

Ray made his feature film debut in 2003 as the voice of Manny the wooly mammoth in 20th Century Fox’s animated hit, “Ice Age,” and reprised the role in four sequels. In 2009, he teamed with Mike Royce to create and star in “Men of a Certain Age”. The comedy-drama ran for two seasons on TNT and won the Peabody Award in 2011. Ray also appeared in three seasons of NBC's "Parenthood,” and starred in the HBO drama series “Vinyl”. In 2018, he appeared with Kumail Nanjiani and Holly Hunter in "The Big Sick". After completing three seasons of the EPIX series "Get Shorty" and a 2019 Netflix stand-up special, “Right Here, Around the Corner,” Ray co-starred with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman (MFF 2019) Other feature film credits include Paddleton with Mark Duplass and Bad Education with Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney. In 2021 Ray co-starred with Cristin Milioti in two seasons the HBO Max series “Made for Love”.

MFF’s Saturday Night Centerpiece Film, Somewhere in Queens, marks Ray’s impressive directorial debut, which he also co-wrote, produced and stars in.