{"id":313174,"date":"2025-11-28T22:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T22:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/313174\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T22:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T22:53:07","slug":"patricia-heaton-on-how-she-landed-everybody-loves-raymond-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/313174\/","title":{"rendered":"Patricia Heaton On How She Landed ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ Role"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPatricia Heaton<\/a> won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Debra Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond<\/a>. The actress revealed the backstory of how she actually landed the role during the iconic CBS sitcom\u2019s 30th anniversary reunion special.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe smart, savvy and often overwhelmed wife of Ray Romano<\/a>\u2018s Ray was the backbone of the Barone family. In addition to juggling family responsibilities, she had to deal with Ray\u2019s overbearing mother Marie, played by Doris Roberts.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWell, I was going through \u2014 and I think why the show worked, we were all going through \u2014 what the Barone family was going through in our lives,\u201d Heaton said. \u201cI had a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old in my life. I had a babysitting issue when I was coming to the audition, I needed to get back. I was cutting out coupons for 50 cents off two packs of Ball Park Franks, so I needed the gig.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Heaton arrived at the audition, \u201cthere was a waiting room of at least eight women,\u201d she recalled. \u201cAnd I thought, I\u2019m never gonna get back in time for the babysitter. So I went in and sat there, and I just needed to get this audition done. There was a guy sitting in the corner, and I thought, maybe he can get me some water while we\u2019re waiting for Ray to come in. It was [Ray].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEverybody Loves Raymond\u00a0creator\u00a0Phil Rosenthal<\/a>\u00a0then weighed in, revealing that they saw 200 women for the role, but Heaton did one thing that stood out that none of the other actresses did.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe two of you had the most spectacular chemistry and I always said that Patty Heaton\u2019s the best wife on television,\u201d Rosenthal said.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdded Romano, \u201cWe\u2019re forgetting one little key element that really sold me on you during that first audition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s how desperate I was to get the job,\u201d Heaton said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWell, they don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about,\u201d interrupted Romano.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI kissed him!\u201d, Heaton revealed.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere was a part where it says (in the script), she kisses her husband,\u201d Romano explained. \u201cAnd every other actress just kind of mimed it. For some reason, she did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNobody else?\u201d asked Heaton. Well, apparently not, and that sealed her deal.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd when she walked out, I go, \u2018That\u2019s the one!\u201d Romano exclaimed.<\/p>\n

\n\tRosenthal and Romano also revealed they knew immediately, that out of some 100 actresses who tested for Marie in the \u201cFruit of the Month\u201d scene, that Roberts was clearly the standout.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo one came close to Doris Roberts,\u201d they both agreed. <\/p>\n

\n\tRoberts died in 2016 of natural causes at the age of 90. She and other Everybody Loves Raymond actors who have passed away, including Peter Boyle, who played Marie\u2019s husband and Ray\u2019s dad Frank, and Sawyer Sweeten, who portrayed one of Ray and Debra\u2019s twin sons, Geoffrey, as well as guest stars such as Fred Willard and Georgia Engel, were honored during the reunion special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patricia Heaton won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75,95720,139573,95722,95728,95721],"class_list":["post-313174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-everybody-loves-raymond","tag-everybody-loves-raymond-30th-anniversary-reunion","tag-patricia-heaton","tag-phil-rosenthal","tag-ray-romano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}