21 Years After Everybody Loves Raymond Ended, Ray Romano Is Playing A New Dad On HBO Max

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Ray Romano will play a new father character, more than two decades after his hit show, Everybody Loves Raymond, finished its run.

Ray Romano starred as Ray Barone in the popular sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond for nine seasons and over 200 episodes. The show centered around Ray’s marriage to Debra (Patricia Heaton) and their three children: Ally, Geoffrey, and Michael. In 2025, a special reunion aired, bringing Romano and the cast back together to reminisce about the series.

I’m so excited to hear that Romano is joining the cast of HBO Max’s new series, How to Survive Without Me! He’s going to play Leo, a dad who unexpectedly loses his wife, Beverly. It’s a really powerful story about how he navigates being a parent to his five grown kids while they all deal with their grief and the messiness of life. Greg Berlanti, Bash Doran, and Robbie Rogers wrote it together, and I think it’s going to be something special.

After collaborating with Berlanti on the 2024 movie Fly Me to the Moon, Romano was chosen for the role of Leo, which was specifically created for him. Sarah Aubrey, who leads Max Original Programming, and Clancy Collins White, President of Creative Affairs at Warner Bros. Television, both expressed their enthusiasm about working with Romano and Berlanti on the new series. You can find their comments below.

We’re thrilled to be collaborating with Ray on How to Survive Without Me. The show is reminiscent of the heartwarming family dramas that Greg excels at – a realistic story about love, loss, and a very special family. It’s built to be a long-running series, allowing viewers to really connect with and care about the characters and their lives.

Ray is a truly gifted actor who always delivers complex and heartwarming performances. We’re so excited to have him join the cast of How to Survive Without Me as Leo, the family’s patriarch. We’re confident he’ll add incredible depth to the story envisioned by Greg and Bash, and really connect with the audience.

I’ve always loved Ray Romano, of course – Everybody Loves Raymond is a classic! But it’s interesting to look back at his work and see he’s done a lot of family-centered shows, like his time on NBC’s Parenthood. What really struck me in Netflix’s No Good Deed was how brilliantly he balanced ‘depth and levity,’ as Collins White put it. He plays this seemingly perfect dad and husband, but you quickly realize there’s something much darker going on underneath. And Greg Berlanti? He gets family drama. Think about Everwood, Brothers & Sisters, even Jack & Bobby – he’s clearly built a career on telling these kinds of stories, and he’s really good at it.

HBO is developing two potential new shows, including How to Survive Without Me, after the success of The Pitt. The Pitt has a relatively low budget, releases a season of 15 episodes each year, and HBO hopes the new shows will follow a similar pattern. One of these new projects is a family drama led by Romano, and the other is a police series called American Blue, starring Milo Ventimiglia, known for his role in This Is Us.

Aubrey mentioned that How to Survive Without Me is meant to be a show that comes back season after season, much like Everybody Loves Raymond and other popular network TV series. It seems HBO is also trying to attract viewers who enjoy those kinds of shows by casting Ray Romano.

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2026-02-04 04:08