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Doris Roberts used real frustration to fuel her audition for Everybody Loves Raymond
"In comedy, anger doesn’t work," wrote the actor.
Though Doris Roberts appeared to be destined to play the role of Marie Barone, when the actor was first invited to audition for the role, she viewed it as less of an opportunity and more of an imposition.
According to the actor’s memoir, Are You Hungry, Dear? Life, Laughs, and Lasagna, Roberts was in the process of directing a play titled Screen Test, Take One when she was invited to audition for Everybody Loves Raymond. Though she found the script promising and the character of Marie intriguing, she was given little time to prepare before the audition.
“As I was driving over to CBS for the audition, I was not in the best of moods,” wrote Roberts. “I had heard that more than a hundred actresses had read for the part of Marie. If that were true, why were they just getting to me now? As I pulled into the parking lot, I mustered all my discipline and experience as an actress to banish resentment from my mind. If the producers got a whiff of that, I might as well not have come at all.”
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“Despite my lack of preparation, my instincts were right,” wrote Roberts. “I could have played Marie as angry and irritated, but I knew that in comedy, anger doesn’t work (unless you’re Don Rickles, but he never gets asked to play a mom). Frustration does, and it did with Marie. Everyone in the room broke up laughing.”
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