You are listening to The Next Best Picture podcast, and this is my interview with the director,

co-writer, and star from Samuel and Queens, Ray Ramano.

How long have they been doing that?

That's three or four games.

Weird, right?

Yeah, not to see you.

I hated it.

Your kid, he had a good game. Where's he going to college? No, he's coming to work for us, a family business, construction. I'm a scout. If you want me to make a few phone calls, there might be a hole here or there. Some of those holes have scholarships. Who let the dog out? Who? Who? Who? Who? You know that's 20 years ago. I told him we should use, ain gonna be no rematch. The end of Rocky. That's 40 years ago. Who's this, Dix? Oh, this is Danny. Nice to meet you. Yeah. Do not like her. Don't be mean in front of her. She don't know us yet. Come to dinner Sunday, 12 o'clock. Dinner at 12. I love it. I'll be there.

Danielle's from Forest Hills. We worked on a house over there. Guy of Maserati. Yeah, but it was yellow. No, thanks. Any more meatballs? Oh, I'd make us some more. Oh, no, no, no, no, please. Too late. No, no, no, no. No, you did it. No, really, I haven't that. Everybody's getting more me, yeah.

The neighbors are getting more.

Ray Romano, what a pleasure to be speaking with you, sir. I know right now that my parents would be extremely jealous, but I'm the one who feels very lucky right now speaking with you because I've been a fan of your work for a number of years. And here with somewhere in Queens, you're stepping into a new role for

yourself, that of a feature film director. And so I want to first start off by asking,

they say in the beginning when you're in the writing process to write what you know, you grew up

in Queens, New York. Can you talk to me a little bit about the screenwriting process of working

with your

co-screenwriter on this, Mark Stagman, Stegman, sorry.

Yeah, well, yes, writing what you know is the adage I live by. That's what we did on

Everybody Loves Raymond for sure, and that's what I did on men of a certain age.

And for my first screenplay, yeah, I wasn't, I was going to do what worked for me.

And I knew I wanted to write about Queens, and I knew I wanted to write about the real Italian-American

working class world that I grew up in.

Not so much grew up in, but also married into, because I am Italian- American, but my parents, second generation, but my wife's

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