Phil Rosenthal may be many years out from his last sitcom, but the Everybody Loves Raymond creator keeps damn busy. In the wilds of Alberta earlier in June, where he accepted the award of excellence at the annual Banff World Media Festival, the star of Netflix‘s Somebody Feed Phil sat down to go through his packed schedule. There’s the eighth season of his culinary travelog, out today, a Paley Center retrospective of Raymond, his upcoming speaking tour and, if the red tape finally permits it, a mid-summer launch for his and Nancy Silverton‘s Los Angeles diner, Max and Helen’s. The famously cheery TV writer is psyched about it all… though he is not above indulging a few digressions about the horrors of American life at the moment.
Are you the kind of traveler who goes someplace and immediately says, “I could live here?”
Oh yes. I feel that way about Italy and Spain. I feel that way about London. London is spectacular. It would be so easy to live there. The food scene amazing
It really is and that was not the case when I spent a semester there 20 years ago.
It’s one of the best food cities in the world now that they embraced fresh produce and their immigrant population. I attribute the quality of food that you can get anywhere in the world now to the immigrants. That is kind of theme that is emerging on the show, that immigrants mostly make everywhere they go better. That’s what I’m finding in every single city. And when we explore Las Vegas, for example, this season, obviously there’s the strip. Same as Disney World, the Las Vegas Strip was built and maintained by immigrants over the last, at least 50 years. There are great Chinatowns, great Indian places, great Thai places, great Korean places everywhere off the strip. We should only be celebrating the immigrants who truly made America great. I can’t stand that there’s any anti-immigrant sentiment at all, let alone what’s happening because it’s so the opposite of what is true.
It’s frustrating, because it doesn’t even feel like a logical argument. What jobs do people think they’re taking?
They’re adding. Start removing these people who make the world run and then see what happens.
Looking at your tour dates and seeing this show hit its eighth season, you’re kind of a performer now. How has that transition been?
One of the highlights of my life to get cast in school play. All I wanted to be was funny on stage. My dad was really funny. Everyone I watched on TV or idolized was funny. People like Johnny Carson, who I got to meet.
Oh, really? I wouldn’t have thought your timelines aligned.
I got to have lunch with him eight years after he was off the air. So I directed President Clinton in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner video. It was the first time a sitting president had done an intentionally funny video. Obama did them and of course Biden, though you’ll notice Trump will never do anything intentionally funny, but by the way. Anyway, the next day the video popped. And a friend of mine, Tony De Sena, had been a writer for Carson, who had seen the video. Tony asked him if he’d like to have lunch with the guy who made it. So I had lunch with Johnny Carson and I brought Ray Romano with me. He couldn’t have been nicer. Amazing.
What was he like as a hang?
I went up to the office first and the entire wall was TV Guide covers just of him. We sat with him for two hours, and he was just was so generous with his time — stories, anything you wanted to talk about. He had a very strong opinion about political human. He said, “Just do your act and get the fuck off the stage.” I wonder, though, if he could have resisted such a comic figure as Trump.
He probably couldn’t have imagined present circumstances.
I swear, I’m glad my parents are dead. This would’ve killed them. I just can’t imagine someone who’s lived as long as that and seen all the changes for the good that the country’s made and then this tremendous leap backwards. Is it just human nature to build something up and then destroy it? Certainly seems that way. I was friendly with Larry Gelbart. You know who that was?
Yes.
He had the best line ever. I was talking about what it’s like to pitch sitcoms to him over lunch with him and Norman Lear. At one point he just turns to Norman after hearing about the process now, and he says, “We’re dying just in time.” That’s how I feel about the world sometimes. Anyways, we digress. Do your acting and get the fuck off the stage.
What do you do when you’re on stage?
I like to tell people that I come on stage, eat a sandwich and then leave Somebody thought I was serious. No, I’m not charging ticket prices for that. They show a highlight reel and then I come out with a moderator — a different moderator, each city. Hopefully funny stories about my life and my career that’s like 35 years old at this point. The second half of the show is an audience Q&A, which is my favorite part. That’s all improv.
How much are you traveling between touring and production lot?
Half the year. I’m grabbing it all now. I don’t have to tell you, if you watch the news, anything could happen. I’m trying to live right now. And I think of the world as ours — meaning all of us. You want to be a citizen of your town, your state, your country and then of the world. The more you travel, the more you realize that it does belong to everyone.
When is the restaurant going to open? It feels like that’s been gestating for a while.
I’ve had the lease for a year and a half! It is not easy to open a small business of any kind, let alone a restaurant. You have to get permitting for every single thing you want to do. The bureaucracy, that’s a real thing. You get approved by one guy and another guy comes in a month later and says “That’s not going to pass inspection.” But, hopefully, we’re opening end of July.
How’s the menu coming along?
Nancy Silverton’s a genius, of course. Now that talent is being focused on comfort food at the diner, so when she says, “Here, try this chocolate pudding,” it only looks like ordinary chocolate pudding. It’s one of the best chocolate desserts I’ve ever had in my life. “Oh, Phil, you like a hot, open-faced turkey sandwich?” Amazing. This is my favorite diner dinner, and she gives me the best one I’ve ever had. There’s Helen’s Matzoh Ball Soup. The one dish my mom made well was her matza bowl soup. Nancy made it better than my mother’s! I don’t know what I’m most excited about. I don’t know what I’m going to order at my own diner.
