Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Production has just wrapped on the first 10 episodes of Ray Romano's new TNT "Men of a Certain Age" series. Now he waits anxiously for the Dec. 7 unveiling of his new baby to see whether audiences accept him in a dramedy far different from his long-running sitcom. What drove Romano to put himself back in the series pressure cooker, when, after all, "Everybody Loves Raymond" made him a wealthy man?

"That's the point right there," he says. "I don't like saying this, but I don't need to do this financially for any reason at all. I don't need to do anything. Which is almost part of the problem, so this is purely driven from the need to do what makes me happy, kind of identify with who I am. I mean, some people don't need that sense of work to validate them or to give them that sense, but I kind of do," he admits.

"I mean, I was working for 20 years, I was doing stand-up for 11 years and 'Raymond' for nine, and then when 'Raymond' ended — that's 20 years of performing, creating, flexing those muscles and it just ended. And you went into this big void all of the sudden. So money, yeah, it's nice, but I don't know how much money my wife needs."

Romano tells us that "Men of a Certain Age," also starring Scott Bakula and Andre Braugher, was "almost naturally the way to go for me. I was coming off of 'Raymond' and had about five months or so of trying to figure out what to do next. It's kind of where I was in my own life — for different reasons and different circumstances and a different level, but still kind of feeling internally the same thing that guys can go through at that age, kind of wandering and a bit lost and have a bit of an identity thing going, you know?

"So, I met with my buddy Mike (Royce) — we'd worked together on 'Raymond' — and said, 'Let's do something.' We're both the kind of guys who get joy and we feel more centered when we're working, when we're creating something. So we thought, 'Let's do it about this.'"

What they've come up with is charming, compelling and real, with poignant and even painful moments in addition to funny ones.

FROM THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT: With rumors swirling around "Ugly Betty" — that the show might get snatched from the jaws of the Friday night death slot and tucked into the "Eastwick" spot on Wednesday nights — Mark Indelicato is holding out hope no matter what. In fact, the 15-year-old, who plays Betty's (America Ferrera) fashion-obsessed nephew, Justin, admits he was really surprised when first learning that ABC was moving the series to the inhospitable territory of Friday nights, because he believes the show still has a lot of loyal fans.

"I was a little shocked because there was no warning about it.

I had to hear it from the tabloids and the TV programs," he says of the time slot change. "I didn't get to hear it directly from someone, which caught me off guard, too. I would have been more calm about it if someone from the network had called and told me what was going on. Of course, the press blow it up and say, 'Ugly Betty Getting Canceled,' so I was like, 'Oh, my God, what's going on?'" he recalls.

"But I think moving it to Friday night is partly to build up ABC's night on Friday. We're on at 9 so we can do a little bit edgier material."

Regardless of the future, though, Indelicato feels good about the work they've been able to do. "I'm happy with what we've done this season so far. If this is, God forbid, the last season of the show, I'm going to go out on a season where I feel like I've accomplished so much. Of course, none of us want this to be the end. We're so invested in each other. The chemistry is there because we genuinely want to work together."

THAT OTHERWORLDLY FACE: Morena Baccarin, who plays the alien Anna in "V," is 30 years old, but tells us she can remember watching the original 1983 miniseries event from which her ABC sci-fi drama is drawn. "I saw it when I was really young, really little. I caught it a little later than everyone else because I was in Brazil, but I remember that I loved it," says the actress, who hails from Rio de Janeiro, where her mother's a stage-and-TV actress and her father's a news executive. "It's a great idea to remake it. It's a cool concept," adds Baccarin, who's been toiling long days on the Vancouver location. And now that her face has been all over the world on TV, hovering above skyscrapers thanks to alien-style jumbo vision, is the former "Firefly" actress ready for major fame? "Let's hope," she says with a laugh. "Yeah, I'm ready. Let's do it."

THE BIG-SCREEN SCENE: With a mid-January production start now set for Daniel Craig's "Dream House," casting is still under way for his wife and kids in the psychological thriller. They're also filling the role of a neighbor lady in the flick, in which the reigning 007 star will play a guy who learns that a family was butchered in the same house into which he and his loved ones have just moved. You know what they say about those real estate buys that look too good to be true.

With reports by Emily-Fortune Feimster

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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