Patricia Heaton on What's Ahead on Season 3 of 'The
Middle'
Actress talks about being reunited with Ray Romano, why
she's running away from home
By Lie Shia Ong MSN TV
When "The
Middle" returns to ABC tonight with its Season 3 premiere, Patricia Heaton (Frankie) says to be prepared for
a lot of laughs. There's also a special "Raymond" reunion as guest star Ray Romano joins the cast. MSN TV spoke with
Heaton about what's going to happen to the Hecks -- one of America's favorite
families on TV -- this season and a little bit about her real-life family,
too.
MSN TV: What can fans expect from the Hecks this
season?
Patricia Heaton: The season premiere has Ray Romano as a guest star, with a
great flashback to Frankie and Mike's (Neil Flynn) honeymoon that Ray crashes. It was
really fun to see Ray and work with him again even though we worked 16 hours and
got rained on and were chased by a bear. [Laughs] So that was really fun. Brick
(Atticus Shaffer) gets a new,
overenthusiastic teacher played by Chord Overstreet from "Glee." Mike has to deal with him this year because he
says he knows how to deal with stuff better, he can get stuff done. So we have
that, and we just shot this completely disgusting episode where Axl does
something that's really totally gross and Frankie gets so upset that she runs
away from home. She decides her life is just out of control and she doesn't know
what she's going to do. We just shot that one, which is one of the best episodes
of the year, I think.
Are you excited to see Patricia Heaton and Ray Romano reunited on
TV on the season premiere of "The Middle"? Tell us on Facebook.
You were chased by a bear. That was part of the show,
right?
[Laughs] Yes it was. There aren't bears running around on the set!
What was it like having Ray Romano back on set with you? You worked
together for so many years on "Everybody
Loves Raymond."
It was great. It's a different way to work because we are a single-camera
show. When we did "Everybody Loves Raymond," it was multi-cameras, so we had
much more time to relax and rehearse, and this was one day, 16 hours long of
just really working hard. We have a pretty strict policy: You have to be
word-perfect on the script. You will get corrected until you get it, which I
think was a little bit of a shock to Ray's system because I don't think they
worked that way on "Men of a
Certain Age." It was really fun, and there are some jokes that the writers
put in there as sort of a wink at the fact that Ray and I played husband and
wife previously.
This isn't the first time you've had a "Raymond"-reunion of sorts. Doris Roberts was on the show, too. Any plans on
having her come back, too?
The Middle:'The Middle' sneak peek: It can be arranged
Video by:
Description:
As graduation day approaches, tension begins to build between Frankie and Axl when he ignores her requests for answers about the graduation party she's planning for his special day. "The Middle" airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
