PARTING SHOT
Illustration by BRITT SPENCER
FOLLOWING CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR HIS ROLES IN THE BIG SICK AND the Get Shorty TV series, Ray Romano’s new Netflix film, Paddleton, should extend the comedian’s successful dramatic run. The creator of the classic sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond plays an alienated bachelor whose neighbor and only friend, played by Mark Duplass, receives a fatal diagnosis. “It was the minutiae that attracted me to the film,” Romano says of the script, co-written by Duplass. “I was into that HBO show Mark did, Togetherness, and I knew he liked to do movies with a lot of improv and natural dialogue.” Paddleton comes on the heels of Right Here, Around the Corner, Romano’s first stand-up comedy special in 23 years, in which he confronts turning 60 and returns to familiar ground, telling jokes about his family life and wife of 30 years. “Whenever she complains, I tell her to go cry into a bag of money,” says Romano. “I’ve said that line before, but you can write it down again.”