TV Writer Mike Royce (Everybody Loves Raymond, Lucky Louie..) - Ep. 25

This week’s guest is tv writer Mike Royce. The native Syracuse NYer burst on to the small screen nearly 20 years ago, writing for such shows as "SNL" and "Spin City".  But it wasn't until he joined the writing staff of a little known sitcom called "Everybody Loves Raymond" that things really took off. 

6 years and 7 emmy nominations (including 2 wins) later, Royce went on to write on the short lived HBO Louis CK sitcom "Lucky Louie" and then partnered with Ray Romano to co-create the critically acclaimed "Men of a Certain Age".  Which oddly, is where I enter the picture. 

The Peabody award-winning series was a smart, thoughtful, comedy-drama that followed three 40-something friends going through - you guessed it - a  mid life crisis. And though I was neither middle aged nor a man when it aired back in 2009 through 2011 - it nevertheless provided a surprisingly accessible entry point from which I could settle in, and emotionally invest in characters I had no real business investing in, as they painstakingly made their way through this seemingly un-relatable stage of life. I loved every minute of it. Unfortunately TNT canceled it after just 2 seasons and I went on with my life. As you do. 

CUT TO: 2015. After a particularly difficult couple of years - a period in which I cut off ties with my parents, entered my 40’s, crawled my way through breast cancer while juggling a senior level executive position at a notoriously cut throat network, the burn out form which resulted in major career dissatisfaction and my subsequent quitting and moving back to London, the breakdown of the most significant romantic relationship of my life and the beginning of a remarkable spiritual quest which I wont bore you with here - I realized I had just come through and out the other side of a mid life crisis of my own - albeit a female one. I didn’t know that even existed until one day, last year, sitting in my house in London, I happened upon a Psychology Today article entitled “What a female mid life crisis looks like”.  As I approached the end of the article, I realized that’s precisely what I just went through. I hadn’t connected the dots on those difficult and profound experiences as part of some larger, macro experience until that article. And then the floodgates opened. So this summer, I wrote a tv pilot about it. Even though our projects are very different in both tone and execution, it put Men of a Certain Age back on my radar.

I promptly went back and watched every damn episode and… was reminded of just how good it was. So I reached out to Mike, met him on the Sony lot where he’s currently prepping a really cool and exciting new show (I can’t say what but the studio should be announcing it any day now).  We talked about all manner of things including the difference between the female mid life crisis and the male version - they are very different beasts, whether creative types need inspiration to do good work, his relationships with Louis CK and Ray Romano, hockey, and the craft of writing.

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