Ray Romano’s Queens-based dramedy flick: ‘ultimately about family’
Ray Romano, who grew up in Forest Hills, took the “write what you know” trajectory when he and Mark Stegemann crafted the the screenplay for “Somewhere in Queens” — which also marks Romano’s big-screen directorial debut.
“I’d never written a screenplay and neither had Mark,” Romano, 65, told The Post. “I knew what I like to write about and it’s this type of movie — a small but effecting dramedy — and I knew that I wanted to write about this Italian-American working-class world which I lived in and grew up in and, even more, married into,” said the former “Everybody Loves Raymond” star. “The family dynamics and all the tradition you see in the movie are more from my wife’s [Anna] side, actually — Sunday dinner, the banquet hall … I’ve been married for 35 years and it’s been [like that] since Day One.”
“Somewhere in Queens,” opening April 21, features Romano as Leo Russo, who works in his family’s construction business alongside his more polished younger brother, Frank (Sebastian Maniscalco) and his brusque father, Dominic (Tony Lo Bianco), who built the business and barely tolerates Leo — who’s quick to quote from the “Rocky” movies, is slightly disheveled and is always late for work.
Leo and his wife, Angela (Laurie Metcalf), a breast-cancer survivor, live in a quiet Queens neighborhood with their only child, Matthew (Jacob Ward), aka “Sticks,” a high school basketball star who’s about to graduate.
Sticks is socially awkward and doesn’t speak much outside of the house; Leo basks in his son’s reflected glory — which helps his oft-deflated ego — and in the attentions of Pamela (Jennifer Esposito), a widow who takes a shine to him.
The situation takes a tricky, awkward turn when Leo and Angela discover that Sticks has a girlfriend: spirited, independent Dani (Sadie Stanley), who works as a waitress in a local diner and builds Sticks’ confidence and self-esteem.
When Sticks lands an opportunity to attend Drexel University (in Philadelphia) on a basketball scholarship, rather than, as expected, enter the family business straight out of high school, Leo goes to great lengths to ensure this will happen — with significant ramifications.
“I wanted [the movie] to … hopefully appeal to everybody because it’s ultimately about family,” Romano said. “I had a couple of ideas for the story but it was really inspired by what I was going through in real life, which was my youngest son graduating high school. He’s 6-foot-5 and one of his high school’s star basketball players and we knew he wasn’t going to continue [playing] in college and that his last game in high school was his last game — and it got very emotional for me,” he said. “I realized how I was going to miss that … I was going to miss being the father of the high school star and, as sad as it sounds, I was going to miss the attention — like I didn’t get enough attention in real life!
“I thought, the crux of the story is this guy [Leo] … this is all he has,” he said. “He feels very insignificant in his life and this makes him feel like somebody. I brought other elements of my life into it. My wife is a breast-cancer survivor and my other son struggles with social anxiety,” he said.
“We mixed all that in and tried to come up with … a family dramedy that’s ultimately about a man trying to do the best for his son for maybe slightly selfish reasons and going to limits he shouldn’t … involving family dynamics we all can relate to.”
As “Somewhere in Queens” progresses, each major character evolves in different, nearly imperceptible ways.
“We give ’em a little sprinkle, just a nugget of niceness and humanity,” Romano said. “We were worried we were wrapping [the story] up too neatly for every character, but even the slightest thing … like when [Dominic] throws [Leo] a bone — he did the best he could, but he couldn’t even look at him when he did it.”
Romano said that Matthew/Sticks was the most difficult part to cast, since he and the production team needed someone with bona fide basketball skills (that’s Ward, and not a stunt double, in all the basketball scenes — and he’s that good).
“I can’t tell you how hard it was to find a kid who could play basketball,” he said “First of all, we wanted [Sticks] to be 6-foot-5, so we got rid of that [requirement] within the first week of looking. Each actor put themselves on tape in their backyard or in the schoolyard and as soon as we saw the tapes, 99 percent of the time we knew these kids never played basketball.
“Jacob was on our short list anyway, and when it came down to probably three guys who had the essence and qualities we wanted … we took a chance on him,” Romano said. “He was a Postmates driver at the time; he’s very young and raw but has this innocent quality we liked about him.”
