Romano Brings Laughs To Film

Each week, 20 million viewers tune in to Ray Romano's hit CBS series "Everybody Loves Raymond."

This weekend, he hopes they follow him to movie theaters where he is making his big screen debut as a plumber turned mayoral candidate in "Welcome to Mooseport."

On Tuesday's The Early Show, the comedian talked about his first major motion picture.

In the movie, Romano plays Handy Harrison of a small Maine community, who finds himself in competition to become mayor of Mooseport. His opposition is two-term President of the United States, Monroe "Eagle" Cole (Gene Hackman).

Cole and Harrison are also in competition to win the love of Sally, who is frustrated by Harrison's inattentiveness.

Romano says he was offered numerous scripts but didn't want to do a film unless he felt it was right for him at the correct time.

"I was being very careful about what would be the first film, live action film, because the audience is used to my [television] character," says Romano. "You can't go too far away from that. Then again, you don't want to play the same guy on TV. [Welcome to Mooseport] seemed like a good mix, a good compromise between the two."

But initially, "Welcome to Mooseport" wasn't a must-do film to make.

"This script, they saw about two years ago, and it came and went away and came back again," he explains. "It all worked -- the cast, everything. It all fit."

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