Martin Scorsese had no idea who Ray Romano was before vinyl

Well, it seems that not everyone knows Raymond.

“Everybody Loves Raymond” star Ray Romano has revealed that Oscar winner Martin Scorsese completely forgot about the actor’s TV fame before casting him in the short-lived HBO series “Vinyl.”

“Scorsese did the pilot and I had to go up to tape. The good thing was, I put the tape on and we got a response like, “Yeah, Marty likes it. It’s on. And Marty wants to know who she is. He never saw him,” said Romano Marc Maron “WTF” podcast. “And my agent said, ‘So you’ve never seen the show?’ And they’re like, “No, no, no, he doesn’t know who that guy is,” which was a blessing because he didn’t have to erase the sitcom character from his brain.

Romano continued, “I can buy that Martin Scorsese doesn’t watch TV. So when he hired me, he liked what he saw.”

The “Somewhere in Queens” director admitted that the role of “Vinyl” was a “stretch” for him from the world of comedy.

Connected

Connected

“We’re doing the pilot, and I’m playing this 70s guy, this musician guy, and I’m snoring coke, this and that, and it’s really stressful for me, but it’s fun as hell. Then a year passes, almost a year until the second episode. And I’m reading and my character has to be thinking about killing myself in his garage and he’s crying. And I go to my agent, ‘Well, I don’t know if I can do it,'” Romano said. “And she was so compassionate, she goes on, ‘You’d better do it!’ This is the answer. And it was the first time I’ve ever had something that hard, and I’m like, ‘Holy shit.’

Romano listened to Coldplay’s “Fix You” to get into character for a scene involving a suicide attempt.

“I actually surprised myself by tapping into it and pulling it off,” Romano said. “It was weird. It was square for me to attack a scene like that.”

“Vinyl” debuted in 2016 and was canceled after one season.

Romano later worked with Scorsese again on The Irishman, noting that he was waiting for a sign of approval from the director or co-star Robert De Niro after a particularly grueling day of production.

“I had a pretty big scene with De Niro in that one,” Romano said, citing that the sequence took place on the second day of production and took three hours to shoot a single scene. “I got nothing from Scorsese and nothing from De Niro. The day is over, they’re going home!”

Romano called his wife and said, “I don’t know the man. I swear to God. I don’t know if De Niro is telling Scorsese “we’ve got to get rid of this guy” or whatever.

That’s when Romano spotted De Niro at the hotel check-in.

“He just walks up, grabs my head, kisses me on the cheek and just walks away,” Romano said. “Well, I guess that’s good. It’s the mob, so you never know!”

Register: Stay up to date with the latest movie and TV news! Subscribe to our email newsletter here.