In her world, everybody loves fame and fortune
Nine years playing a no-nonsense wife on the hit CBS sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond” proved to Patricia Heaton that family strife has universal appeal.
People related to “Raymond,” she says, because “family emotions are a big deal.”
No surprise, then, that the two-time Emmy winner, in her first big post-“Raymond” role, is starring in TNT’s “The Engagement Ring,” which she describes as a “sort of comic opera of grand emotions.”
Premiering tonight at 8, it’s the romantic story about rival winemakers in California’s Napa Valley (though most of the film was shot around Victoria, B.C.).
Heaton, who is also the film’s executive producer, plays Sara Anselmi, whose desire to merge the two vineyards heightens long-simmering resentments.
David Hunt, Heaton’s real-life husband, plays Sara’s business-minded fiance. Vincent Spano is Tony Di Cenzo, a member of the rival family whose free-form attitude toward life and love stirs Sara’s untapped emotions.
Heaton, who had nurtured the film project for several years, says she was attracted to the script’s exploration of “true love, and what it is, and how do you know what it is. Is it just chemistry, or is it years and years of commitment and being together and hanging in there building a history? And how do you find both?”
As the mother of four sons, ranging in age from 6 to 12, Heaton knows quite a bit about finding such a balance in life. Snatching time for a quick lunch at a coffee shop near her Los Angeles home, the 47-year-old actress exudes the air of someone who can cope.
But she says it was a little easier to organize her life when she was locked into the comfortable routine of sitcom production, where “the schedule gave a lot of time to be with the kids, be home, make good money and have fun. And really, what more could you ask for?”
Heaton and her husband run a production company, Four Boys Films, and she’s in the “early, early” stages of developing a possible sitcom for herself. She’ll play someone, she says, “fairly close to who I am.”
Other projects from Four Boys include a documentary feature called “The Bituminous Coal Queens of Pennsylvania,” a portrait of small-town America; and “Amazing Grace,” a feature film, to be directed by Michael Apted, about William Wilberforce, an 18th century English anti-slavery activist.
Heaton says she and her husband like to seek out stories that “are fairly uplifting,” and that their goal is to “explore humanity without being either sentimental or nihilistic.”
As she moves on, she does so with no regrets about “Raymond” ending.
“It was a wonderful nine years, but I think it was really time to go,” she says.
Is she bothered by all the fame and recognition that “Raymond” brought?
“Bothered? Me? You’re kidding!” Heaton says.
“All my life I’ve waited for that moment. People say, ‘Oh, you must get so tired of it.’ I say, ‘I didn’t work in restaurants and hotels all those years in New York so people would ignore me!’ “
The birthday bunch
Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr. is 76. Musician Randy Newman is 62. Bandleader Paul Shaffer (“Late Show With David Letterman”) is 56. Actor Ed Harris is 55. Actress S. Epatha Merkerson (“Law & Order”) is 53. Actor Judd Nelson is 46. Comedian Jon Stewart is 43. Model Anna Nicole Smith is 38. Musician apl.de.ap (Black Eyed Peas) is 31.