How ‘Men of a Certain Age’ helped turn Andre Braugher into a comedic star

Andre Braugher was one of the three stars of “Men of a Certain Age,” a well-received cable dramedy about a group of college buddies grappling with the insecurities and disappointments of middle age. Initially, producers were hesitant to cast Braugher in the role of Owen Thoreau Jr. The series premiered in 2009 on TNT, and the actor, who died Monday at 61, garnered two Emmy nominations for his performance as a frustrated car salesman.

Despite its critical acclaim, the show was canceled after only two seasons (it’s available to stream on Max). Mike Royce, the showrunner of the series, spoke to The Times about casting Braugher and what it was like to work with the distinguished actor.

“First of all, he allowed himself to be cast,” recalled Royce, who in addition to showrunning, was co-creator of “Men of a Certain Age” with Ray Romano (“Everybody Loves Raymond”), also a star in the show. Actor Scott Bakula rounded out the trio.

Andre Braugher “should just be given any part that he wants,” showrunner Mike Royce said.

(Danny Feld / TNT)

“We were fortunate to get a lot of really good people to read for us … and Andre Braugher — he had no business reading for anybody. He should just be given any part that he wants,” Royce said. “But he flew in from New York to read with Ray. It was his dedication to the craft and also his lack of ego to do that.”

“The only reason we even hesitated to cast the greatest actor in the world was that he hadn’t done comedy before. And this was a dramedy so we wanted to make sure that he would be funny,” Royce said. “We even searched the internet. He’d done so much great dramatic work, but there wasn’t a lot of material of him in a comedic role.”

“Once we cast him, Ray made the prediction. He said: ‘You know what’s going to happen. He’s going to be the funny guy on the show.’ That’s coming from Ray, who was the funny guy on the show. And, lo and behold, what emerged was Andre’s ability to not only play drama but, amazingly, also do comedy.”

“After our show, he got on ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine,’ where he showed the world that he was f— hilarious,” Royce said.

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Giving notes to Braugher could be daunting.

“He would come in so well prepared and we had a hilarious back and forth with him because sometimes we would want to change things. Sometimes Ray would want to do slight improv for some takes,” Royce said.

“And Andre would say, ‘Well, no, I revere the author.’ And you’d be like: ‘No, no, I’m the author.’ But he respected the words on the page so much, and he did so much preparation,” Royce said.

“We’d always joke that if you gave a note to Andre, you were going to get one of two things. Either he would say, ‘ OK,’ or there would be a 45-minute discussion. So you really had to decide: ‘Do I want to give this note? Is it going to improve what we’re doing here?’”

Ray Romano, left, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula in “Men of a Certain Age.”

(Danny Feld / TNT)

The team quickly learned to trust Braugher’s instincts.

“He always did it better. Particularly with the comedic stuff. He had his own timing, his own rhythm. And even if it wasn’t the way that you heard it in your head, it was inevitably better,” Royce said.

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Royce also remembers another aspect of Braugher’s dedication.

“On ‘Men of a Certain Age,’ when we would go on a hiatus, he would just disappear from set the moment we were done so he could fly home to New Jersey,” Royce said. “He was very dedicated to his family. He was not super show business-y. He was all about the work.”

Later Royce tried to interest Braugher for another role, so he sent the actor a draft of the script that he had written.

“I went around his agent and sent it right to him, taking advantage of my relationship with him,” Royce said. “He read it immediately and texted me, something like: ‘Yeah, this is not for me. But if you want to talk about it, let’s talk about it.’“

“I got on the phone with him and he gave me an hour’s worth of his thoughts and all these really good notes on this script that he wasn’t going to do,” Royce said. “He was so respectful. His heart was in the creativity of the process.”

“He could have just read 10 pages and just said, ‘no,’ or not even responded to me at all. But he went an extra 600 miles to help me with all these great thoughts. He made the rewrite so much better on a script for something he wasn’t going to do.”