Sitcoms, Food and the Good Life with Phil Rosenthal
Phil Rosenthal joins Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes for a funny, insightful, and surprisingly heartfelt conversation about sitcoms, Hollywood, creative control, travel, food, and the stories behind Everybody Loves Raymond and Somebody Feed Phil. Phil shares how he fought to cast the right people…
Two moments from this episode
Doris Roberts And The Victim
Phil Rosenthal saw a hundred women for the role of the mother on Everybody Loves Raymond before Doris Roberts came in and read a scene drawn from a true story about a fruit-of-the-month gift. Early in rehearsals she worried the audience would turn on her for making trouble, and told Phil that the victim is the one who wins the Emmy. Her instinct was to cry whenever Peter Boyle got a shot in, so Phil gave her a note she could hold onto: everything you do comes from love.
“She even said to me, you know, the victim wins the Emmy.”
Max Forgets The Camera
For Exporting Raymond, Phil brought a crew to his parents' house so viewers could see where the parents on the show came from. The crew arrived with big cameras, ran a microphone up his mother's blouse and brought a boom pole into the living room. Within five minutes his parents were arguing as if nobody else was in the room.
“within five minutes they're fighting as if nobody's there”
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