By Susan Wloszczyna | USA Today Life Magazine

Would you buy meat from Ray Romano or Kevin James? New Line is hoping that idea sounds appealing to you.

Here's the beef: Ray Romano and Kevin James are door-to-door meat salesmen in Grilled.

Wonder how those big-time sitcom stars Ray Romano and Kevin James are spending their summer vacation? As door-to-door meat salesmen, desperately trying to overcome a business slump.

Don't worry. Everybody Loves Raymond and The King of Queens aren't canceled. The longtime stand-up buddies are just taking a break from their nice-guy personas to dabble in a darker cut of comedy with Grilled.

"It's very difficult to find a comic duo with 20 years of intrinsic chemistry," says director Jason Ensler (TV's Martha, Inc.: The Story of Martha Stewart). "It's lightning in a bottle. This is a real departure for both of them and a chance to defy expectations."

James proved to be so dedicated, he even took a meatology class to bone up on beef basics. Both actors also varied their looks. "Ray has longer hair and grew a beard," Ensler says. "Dare I say he looks very sexy? He has a big head of Pacino hair, a real Serpico thing going on. With Kevin, he's more of an aggressive character, so we gave him an aggressive hair style. Spiky, like Michael Douglas in Falling Down."

The pair spends most of the movie sweating out the hottest day of the year in the San Fernando Valley. "A series of Kafka-esque trials test their strength and endurance," Ensler says. That includes running into such shady individuals as Burt Reynolds as an arms dealer named Cookie.

Those who love family-friendly Raymond might be taken aback by the not-ready-for-prime-time language in Grilled, likely to be branded with an R rating when it opens next year. Explains Ensler: "The guys are committed to making this as real as possible. They don't say 'frick' in this world."

August 8, 2004
By Nancy Mills |  New York Daily News

LOS ANGELES - Ray Romano and Kevin James are furious.

Un-bleeping-believably furious.

Romano, TV's highest-paid star, and James, no slouch in the sitcom ratings department, are spending their summer vacation making a movie.

In "Grilled," they play desperate meat salesmen who have lost all of their sales leads.

In one scene, a giant truck sideswipes their car, spiking their rage up another notch. Standing next to their brown 1989 Cadillac alongside the Los Angeles River, James unleashes a stream of words more likely to be heard on HBO than CBS - and not printable in a family newspaper.

Not everybody will love this Raymond. This Kevin is definitely not the king of Queens. And that's precisely the point.

At the top of the TV comedy game, Romano, 46, and James, 39, are doing what countless actors have tried to do before: using their success as a springboard to careers on the big screen.

"'Grilled' is not a huge, big comedy. It has serious moments and some edge to it," says James. "It's a little scary for us, but it's better than being safe and doing the same stuff over and over again."

"Kevin and I change our minds hour to hour," Romano says. "One hour we go, 'This is the biggest mistake of our lives.' Then we'll do a scene and say, 'This is going to be frickin' cool. This was a great project to be involved in.'

"Then we'll switch right away and go, 'Aw, heck! We're in trouble.' Most of the time he's talking me off the ledge, and I'm talking him off the ledge."

"Grilled" is set in 1997. Romano and James work for the Valley Food Service Co., and if they don't sell any meat soon, they'll be fired. The movie showcases Romano and James as you've never seen them.

"My character doesn't have kids," says Romano, the father of four. "He's not married. He's a little bit sleazy, a little bit of a womanizer, even though he probably can't get any nice women."

James, who has spiked up his hair, says, "My character is part of me, but I hope I'm not as dumb.

"I've sold vinyl siding door to door. I was horrible at it. Sometimes you feel you're taking advantage of people. If you have that feeling, you've got to get out of the business."

Director Jason Ensler likes the contrast between his stars.

"Ray is awkward and sexy at the same time," he says. "Look at his body language. He holds himself in a way that's very powerful.

"Kevin's a rock - in personality and physical presence," he adds. "You couldn't push him over. There's something about him that's immobile, funny and scary."

On the set, the salesmen have pulled off the road to look for their list of potential customers.

"We gotta stay calm," Romano tells James as he rifles through the trunk. "Get it together. Breathe. Lower your shoulder."

In take after take, James leaps around in a comic rage. Eventually a shirttail works its way out of his trousers. Then he decides to improvise, hitting the car with his hand.

Off-camera, members of the crew wince. His hand survives, but his voice is getting hoarse from all the shouting.

Ten takes later, the director calls, "Cut and print!" and James rushes to his chair in the shade and a waiting mug of herbal tea with honey.

Describing how he maintained his anger for so long, he says: "They held off on feeding me lunch. That worked. I was an angry bear when I was out there."

Romano and James met on the comedy-club circuit long before TV called.

"Ray and I get along real well because we've always had the same sensibility in comedy," James says. " We're on the same career path."

"We have the same taste," Romano agrees. "We go low. We go high. We go everywhere. But we try not to do clich¨¦ jokes, formula jokes.

"Our TV roles are kind of alike, you know. The audience is going to be a little surprised to see Kevin and Ray play this kind of dark comedy. We're playing it extreme. We're playing it real."

And they're playing it worried.

"There are expectations when you take two sitcom guys and put them in a movie," James admits.

James, who has at least one more year on "The King of Queens," appeared briefly in "50 First Dates" and just completed a small part in Will Smith's upcoming "The Last First Kiss."

Romano is starting his final season in "Everybody Loves Raymond" - at an estimated $1.8 million per episode - and he's clearly trying to see what's next.

He did one of the voices in the animated movie "Ice Age" but found less success in last year's "Welcome to Mooseport." He has a role in the black comedy "Eulogy," arriving next month.

"I'm trying to find out about acting," says Romano, "find out what's useful when you're trying to look for a character.

"Not to take away from my TV show, because I still work and try just as hard," he says, "but I can do that character now in my sleep.

"I'm not leaving the show because I think I'm going to do movies. I'm leaving the show because it's over. I'm proud of it, and it's time to end it.

"It's not like I have something else planned and that's why I have to leave," he says. "Will I do something else? Yeah. But the show has consumed every creative moment of my life in the last eight years."

May 3, 2004
By Stephen M. Silverman | People Magazine

For Ray Romano, Kevin James and Dave Chappelle, the screen just can't get big enough. All three TV luminaries are set to make new movies. 

Though Romano's recent Welcome to Mooseport, which marked his 
feature-film-performance debut, fizzled at the box office, the star of Everybody Loves Raymond is about to costar in a big-screen project with The King of Queens star Kevin James, says the Hollywood Reporter. 

The movie, Grilled, is being billed as a comedy for New Line Cinema (which 
like PEOPLE is part of Time Warner) in which the CBS funnymen play meat salesmen who stop at nothing to ply their trade. 

Shooting will begin next month, under director Jason Ensler, whose best-known work has also been for TV (Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Three's Company and Martha Inc.: The Story of Martha Stewart). 

For James, 39, this will mark his feature debut. Romano, 46, made his first 
movie as the voice of Manfred the wooly mammoth in 2002's computer-generated animated movie Ice Age.