Eulogy: Starring Hank Azaria, Zooey Deschanel, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, Kelly Preston, Ray Romano, Rip Torn, and Debra Winger; Directed by Michael Clancy (Artisan).

"Hey, Dad!" Romano screams at no one in particular, as he gets stoned with his brothers and sisters in the musty family basement. "What about me? Can I be your kid, too?" In Eulogy, his live-action feature debut, the TV star plays Skip Collins, a lousy lawyer, horny, single dad, and black-sheep eldest son in a dysfunctional family that's come together to bury its negligent patriarch (Torn). Clearly, this is not a guy everybody loves.

"He's definitely angrier and, if possible, even more immature than Ray Barone", says Romano, who, after "looking for something to do for the last two hiatuses", responded to this edgy black comedy and relished the idea of doing an ensemble film his first time out. "There would be a lot riding on me shouldering a whole movie. But I thought, hey, if all these people were getting involved with it, it's worth taking a chance".

The other siblings who've come home to mourn with their suicidal mom (Laurie) include Daniel (Azaria), a has-been actor reduced to playing nonsexual walk-ons in porn flicks; Alice (Winger), an uptight fortysomething; and Lucy (Preston), who's waiting to break the news that she's marrying her life partner Judy (Janssen). (Winona Ryder and Monica Potter were briefly considered for the lesbian couple but scheduling conflicts intervened).

The whole story is told through the eyes of grandchild Kate (Deschannel), a struggling college freshman who takes heart in the fact that her family is much weirder than she is. "The script had a Harold and Maude kind of feel to me", Deschannel (The Good Girl) says on the set in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena. "My dad (cinematographer Caleb Deschannel) worked with Hal Ashby, so that's why I wanted to do it".

First-time writer-director Clancy likes the comparison. "My favorite comedies are the ones where people torture each other", he says. "I've always loved the dynamics in families. When you look closely enough, there's an insanity that permeates everything". That mayhem is clearly evident in today's scene, in which the grown children play pool an unwind with their friend Mary Jane. "It's hilarious", Azaria says. "The prop guy rolled like eight different joints of different herbal varieties (of tobacco). We're using honeyrose, and I gotta say, it kinda tastes like the real deal".

SET FACT: Hank Azaria, who voices several characters on The Simpsons, shares more than just a career in television with Eulogy costar Ray Romano: "Ray and I are from the same hometown", he says. "Forest Hills, Queens".