Ray Romano Makes Film Debut

Everybody may love Raymond now, but in crossing over to the big screen, Ray Romano fears the love may not stretch that far.

With his silver screen debut, “Welcome to Mooseport,” due in theaters on Friday, Romano is worried that his career beyond television may rest entirely on this movie’s success.

“What if it just does abysmally?” Romano told Time magazine for the Feb. 23 issue, out Monday. “What if people not only don’t go – what if they protest?”

Not that he means the movie isn’t good, but maybe it’s not what his audience might expect from the star of the long-running, top-rated CBS sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

“It’s a good movie, but it’s not knockdown funny,” he said. “It wound up being more of a sweet movie.”

But Romano knows that if he fails to achieve big-screen success, he still has the TV show.

“I already told the cast (of `Raymond’), `I’m inviting you to the premiere, but I’m politely asking you not to come,’” he said. “I don’t need the pressure of going to work the next day and them making fun of me.”