Richard Kind
Appearances
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
But this is the thing, you know, I mean, that's the importance of dialogue to me. People say stuff and it's like a fingerprint for that character. And you got to hear it. I mean, to correct it would be to kill it. I mean, this is the way people speak. This is the way people think. And that's gold because it tells you so much more than the information that's coming out of their mouth.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
All righty. It was one of those nights for Anthony Carter, 42, two years unemployed, two years separated from his wife and stepdaughter, six months into cocaine sobriety, and recently moved into his late parents' apartment on Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Went to be alone with his thoughts, alone with his losses. was not survivable.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Not if I can help it. I mean, I don't go to like, you know, hot sheet motels. Right. But what you don't know probably would stun you and horrify you. I mean, the character in the book, it's an affair Mary, the detective, is having with another detective. And, you know, they go to like cheap motels before they went to change. And... This guy gets an ultralight. I forgot what it's called. Luminol.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
It's something that casts a blue light that brings out things that you can't see with the naked eye. And they usually use it at crime scenes, you know, to pick up blood patterns or, you know, body fluids or God knows what. And the first time he brought it to... their motel and put it on the bedroom. It was like a psychedelic circus.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
And that's when they, you know, it's just God knows who's been here doing what. And, you know, there's stuff here, you know, that could kill a horse that you can't see. And that's why they went to chain hotels. But who knows if they're any better.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Yes. I mean, basically, when the kids are in the hospital, he just had a graze room. And the detectives, he won't talk because he knows better. And the detectives turned to her and she says, uh, mommy, can you do your mommy thing? Get him to talk. And she doesn't, she says, I'll take care of this myself. And her strategy, which is great.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
I think right up to the guy who shot him and just introduce yourself, have your son there and, um, talk to him indirectly. If you see, if you happen to know who did this, can you communicate to that person? And, um, You know, just unman him. And then make sure you give him your name, your son's name, and you have his name. Just so it all becomes personalized.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
I mean, the cops say the best way of community policing is know the people that you're on the block. Know their names. Let them know your name. And it's much harder to pop off when somebody has a name that you know.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
So he did what he always did, hit the streets, meaning hit the bars on Lenox, one after the other, finding this one too ghetto, that one too Scandinavian tourist, this one too loud, that one too quiet, on and on, taking just a few sips of his drink in each one, dropping dollars and heading out for the next establishment, like an 80-proof Goldilocks.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
And she sort of makes him shake her hand. And, I mean, that's, like, brilliant.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
You have to have that confidence. And you have to have grown out of... being a five-year-old in a 40-year-old body emotionally. You have to not be a victim of arrested development. So you have your wits about you. You don't fly off the handle. You look at this and say, how am I going to peel this onion? You know, and there are people who do that.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
There are other people, you know, who shoot you in the back because you wrote a drill rap lyric that's offensive to them. And it's worth getting killed over. It's a whole world out there, you know?
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Well, that's, I don't, you know, you know... I'll tell you one. It's like you're walking down the street and there's a couple of guys walking the other way. And all of a sudden it seems they went out of their way to bump into you. And all of a sudden you see a paper bag and it's dropped. It says, hey, man, you know, you made me drop this. And it turns out, what is it?
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
It's a bottle of vodka and you broke it. And, you know, they try to get you to pay them. And you can't—when it's a novelty, you can't think straight, so you believe it. And I said to the guy, well, what brand of vodka was it? Of course, the guy has to come back and say Grey Goose, you know, so here's 40 bucks.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
And I just felt like—and the minute I paid him off, I just felt like smacking myself in the forehead. I mean, that was—you know, you have this delayed reaction to the con. But the second time somebody tried to pull that off on me, he turned to me and I just said, listen, man, somebody just pulled this on me two weeks ago. And the guy just smiled and he said, all right, I get it.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
You know, like I tried, you know, but it was kind of like cool about it. And I said, well, hell, it's five bucks just for, you know, you're just trying to make ends meet. And next to me was three young women. And this is up in Harlem. And it was so furious that I gave him money. He said, he's trying to rob you. Why'd you give him that money for?
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
You know, and then it's like, it's another type of shock. Like, people in that area, you don't toss around money to somebody who... you know, you don't know and is actually kind of do something. And it was more of an education for me, their reaction.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
thinking maybe this next place, this next random conversation, would be the trigger for some kind of epiphany that would show him a new way to be. But it was all part of a routine that never led him anywhere but back to the apartment. This he knew. This he had learned over and over. But maybe this time is a drug. You never know is a drug. So out the door he went.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
I don't know what I meant by spiritual, but I just felt lost because... My first four novels were so self-referential that I had nothing else to say. I mean, I have four novels, 32 years old, and they're all variations of me and my life. You know, I mean, my throat was parched. I couldn't go on. The books were being written with more and more desperation, trying to find a spark.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
But when The Wanderers was published, a lot of people in Hollywood, because of the good dialogue, thought it'd be great writing screenplays, which is ridiculous because dialogue, the actors don't give you good dialogue. What a screenwriter needs to give you is shape. The shape of the story has to go like a pyramid from the base at minute one to the tip of it in 120 minutes.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
I mean, it's more about architecture than a good ear. But what it gave me, it forced me out of myself. To write The Color of Money, I had to learn this stuff. I had to hang out with pool hustlers. And for Sea of Love, I had to do ride-alongs with cops. And...
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
then I realized, you know, they always say write about what you know, but if what you know is not enough, learn something more, then that becomes what you know and keep learning and what you know keeps expanding and expanding. And it's also the success of what I wrote showed me that I could work with not all that much information that's, you know, journalistically accurate. I can make stuff up.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
All I need is a little bit of hamburger helper, a little bit of face-to-face, a little bit of observation, and I could bring it home and I can shape it up in a plausible way. The other thing that happened, so I felt so lost as a novelist. Then I started having success as a screenwriter. I started making money for the first time. I got married. I had two children, have two children.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
And all of this happened because of screenwriting. I'm not—you know, screenwriting is like typing. You know, it's speed chess. It's not—a screenplay is nothing—it's a bunch of Post-it notes to the director. There's no narrator. There's no voice. There's no sentences. But it was proof to me that I could be so much more—I could know so much more in the world.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
I'm not trapped in a corner with myself in a one-room apartment. And that gave me a—it felt great. It felt great. And it was not—for eight years, that's what I did. And then something, you know, the circumstances of Clockers came about later. And that resonated with me in such a way as I have to write this as a novel knowing I can go out there and learn and feel reinforced and not insecure.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Of course, you're insecure because you're writing. But that's how screenplay writing saved me.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Well, what happened was I was doing research for Sea of Love, and I was in Jersey City.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Yeah. And I was with these cops, and they had to go into this housing project to find either a witness to a homicide. And I was shocked by the housing projects. But it was madness. It was so... chaotic and bedlam-like and felt dangerous. And cocaine was destroying, not cocaine, sniffing cocaine, but rock, crack. And I had a cocaine problem for two years with sniffing coke.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
And I had three books under my belt. And I was doing like crappy coke. It was probably half dandruff. And it still ruined my life for that time. And it wasn't until my wife's... We went to a trip to Italy for a month. And I felt like I am going to stop now because I don't know how to get it. And I stopped. And it was great. You know, it's like an AA. They call it the pink cloud.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
You know, the euphoria of sobriety. Before the work gets hard. And I was terrified that when we got back to the city, I know how to get cocaine again. All I got to do is punch these numbers on the telephone and I'm back as a coke head. And my wife came back with me, obviously. and said two words that changed everything. And those two words were, well, it's three words, but, you know, constricted.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
I'm pregnant. And right there, it was like, that's it. That's it for Coke. And that was the case. So when I went into this project, not only did I grow up in a housing project like this at a more, when it was more functional working class, But I was so haunted. I'm still haunted by my cocaine abuse, you know, in the early 80s that it all came together for me.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
And I just wanted to understand what happened. What is it like to be in the projects this time written by a guy who still had cocaine nightmares and still does now? I had so much personal stuff going into the desire to write that book that I didn't want to make a screenplay and let Hollywood say, oh, well, this is too bummery. Can this character be a little more heroic?
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Finally, I found something after eight years that made me feel like, okay, this is a novel. I'm back. I'm not writing about... I kept myself out of the book. I didn't need to be there. I just wanted to be... The I that wrote the book.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
It hurts. You know, all of a sudden it's like, ouch, this, ouch, that. But not really. I feel like I'm still me. I look in the mirror and there I am. Probably not as good a shape as I want to be, but... You know, I mean, my heart works. You know, I don't mean heart, like cardiac heart. I mean, you know, everything that's important is there.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
It's not easy. But most of the people I know or I knew who have passed in my life, I was not that close to. I just, you know, I feel like... Within a week of reading the obits in the New York Times, there's five people that I knew or I interacted with or I had history with. And that's kind of scary. It's like whack-a-mole. You know, when's that mallet going to come down on your head?
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Well, you know, it's just some people have like this constant state of low-key agitation that the thing, the very thing that's going to make you whole is like one micro dot outside your fingertips. And then you can't find it at all and repeat if necessary. Right. It was a level of dissatisfaction I felt. But I don't feel that anymore. I grew out of it. And now I'm kind of, I wouldn't say chill.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
They're dropping like flies. But it's not that much so far. I don't even want to jinx it, so I'm not even going to continue talking about this stuff, but... Yeah, I mean, the older you get, some people go manically the other direction. I'm a spry. I know I'm getting older. It doesn't stop me from anything, but it doesn't leave my consciousness as much as I would like it to.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
I just feel having children... molded me, remolded me. It wasn't all about myself. To finally have people in your life that you're more scared for than you're scared of anything for yourself. Um, to finally have people in your life that you just surrender to, um, and educate you by just being who they are and evolving from year to year to year. They made me.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Before my kids, I was just a guy, and it just reawakened something in me that I didn't really know, this profound keenness and tenderness towards them where it wasn't all about me anymore. In fact, you know, I'm not saying I became like not, you know, I surrendered to them. But it was such a rich and profound thing that they pulled up in me. That I was just so different. They raised me.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Yeah, I love that. Not because it helped me escape from myself. Because it was just natural. I mean, it's like Anthony comes out and he just wants to be of service. I've never made these connections to my life in the book before this interview. But... I mean, the joy of thinking about somebody. And they come out, they drop into your arms, and God says, go, you know, and you go.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
And it's a lifetime thing. I mean, before that, I think I was my own baby.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
I'll never be chill. But at least I'm more relaxed and settled than I've ever been.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Well, everybody was, you know, the first wave. But on a writing level, Level, what happened to me is I love to go out on the street, talk to people. It's a lot more fun than writing. And I couldn't do that. I couldn't get fed. And it's called fiction. You know, you make things up. But I'm so addicted to that type of interaction in the service of a novel.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
You know, just because it happened doesn't make it art. But the trick is to go home and make it art. And I couldn't go out for years. I mean, I could, but not to, like, meet people. Hi, how you doing? What's your name? Shake my hand. And that sort of messed me up.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Just being on the street, it's just the random things that you overhear or the conversations you get into because so many people... Harlem is like a little different than the rest of New York in terms of people make eye contact, people nod, even if they don't know you. If you say something, they're going to say something back.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
And next thing you know, you're standing there on a corner and you're talking. And I've never met a person who hasn't come up at least... with one thunderbolt of offhand observation or commentary.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
I knew not to curse on Yom Kippur, so God wouldn't put me in the book of death. Did you fast? I don't know. I went to Hebrew school until I was bar mitzvahed. And then after that, my relationship with being Jewish was pretty much... The only time I really felt Jewish is, besides Sandy Koufax not pitching, is when there was an anti-Semitic moment, an incident.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Then I felt very, you know, tight with my religion. Other than that, I was pretty much a humanist. I didn't raise my children to be—I made a deal with my wife. I won't circumcise them if you don't christen them. I mean, it was sort of like a humanistic relationship.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Yeah, I think. How would I know? Oh, I'm taking the kids out for a walk. I'll be back. Why are they all dressed up in white? Oh, it's a nice day. White looks good in April. Who knows? But I imagine that we kept to that. Yes.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
It was just my feeling. Yeah. But it's a very complicated thing that he's setting up here, which is to say, you know, it'd be easiest for me if I could find in the book what he says.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Yeah, he's a little bit of a celebrity because he is the Lazarus Man. He has survived 36 hours in the rubble when no one detected any kind of sign of life. And yet he was miraculously found. This is what he's saying to people to give them hope, you know, at this funeral for a young kid who was shot trying to... Get in between two gangs to calm people down.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
As I said before, I've never been a deeply religious individual. And I still don't consider myself one. But I feel guided now. And my purpose in being here today is to deliver to you a message that just might make it possible to accept your aching hearts and continue to live the life that he has given you. For a brief moment, he stood there speechless, amazed at what he was about to say.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
What I have learned since that day in the rubble is that whatever befalls you in life, whatever appears to you as an impossible burden, an unbearable weight, in the end, if you persevere, if you hold fast, will turn out to be a gift. Whatever befalls you, no matter how heartbreaking or onerous, will turn out to be the best thing, the perfect thing, because of what is to come out of it.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
In fact, it will be the best thing that could possibly happen to you.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
When I read my reviews and they say what has resonated with them, they'll use words like gratitude. But I wasn't thinking, oh, I'm going to really use gratitude as a theme. I mean, the guy just survived everything. a miraculous thing. And you got to be grateful for that. And all of a sudden, in that gratefulness, you see how precious life is because you almost were not here anymore.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
And if you're inspired, you want to spread that message, the getting of grace. He just says at some point, every minute of every day, everything is precious. When I was pulled out of that rubble and I could take my first undirt caked breath, all I wanted to do was to live and live and live. It just happened to me in a way that very low key happened.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
I feel like I am the person I was when I talked to you the last time, but I'm not the person I was when I talked to you the last time. And I'm not religious, believe me. It's happiness. I just somehow discovered peace. in my life. Like, my earlier books, there was always this propelling anxiety in me that I have to make it, like, dazzling and spectacular and blow people away.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
And it was very high-pitched in me and not healthy. But I've settled down, you know. My heart has lowered the volume and deepened the base, it feels like. And so I write a book like this where... You know, other than this calamitous event of a five-story tenement pancaking on itself, everything else is people's lives with that in the background of their experience on that day.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
No, I haven't. But even with Clockers, which I wrote in 1990, 89, 91, I was really aware of the whole notion of cultural piracy and, like, how dare I write about someone who, quote, unquote, you have no idea what it's like to be me. And my responsibility is to create a character that That is as fully three-dimensional as I can make that character.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
And in terms of racial sensitivity, well, listen, if you're writing to the stereotype of a person of that race, then you deserve to be pilloried.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
No, you know, I said that to somebody. Well, somebody, when I was writing Clockers, and somebody said, well, how can you write about African-Americans when you're not African-American yourself? And when I said... Well, I grew up in, you know, like a housing project that was very mixed, schools that were very mixed.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
She said, you sound like a southerner, you know, who's saying, I was very close to those people, you know, trying to say, like, I know those people. And that struck me. I mean, the fact that you grow up with somebody, just because it happens, like I said, doesn't make it art. Just because someone exists... doesn't make them an artist. And it just all comes back to just do the best you can.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Do the best you can. You're not just hatched from an egg. You know, make everybody equally human and then let it go.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Sure. I mean, that's the whole point. That's one of the points, yeah.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
Well, you know, people can be for social justice, right? People could put their lives on the line. They could put in the hours to save youth from going down the wrong path. But that doesn't mean they're saints. That doesn't mean they get the whole picture. They could still be sexist. They can still be man comes first. and the priorities of the disguise.
Fresh Air
How Screenwriting Saved Novelist Richard Price
He imagines these women, but he's like a woman in the 1950s, let alone the 1250s. He's saying it in goodwill, but he's revealing where his enlightenment comes to a dead stop.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
I had a teacher who said this. Every answer you need is in the script. Just read the script. You don't have to do any research. Certainly the book of Job wouldn't have done anything. I didn't think that was telling the book of Job. I thought I was talking about this guy named Arthur Gopnik and these were his circumstances. And you play pretend.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
If it meshes into what you think is the book of Job and you interpret all of that, God bless you. But no, no, no. That's not what I did at all. I just played the scene. What are my circumstances? How do I feel? And you just play pretend. That's what it is.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
They're great. I love them. You're always at the height of your game. I was surprised at how word perfect they like their script, but they should because they're great writers. Sometimes Joel would take a physical position and That sort of told me everything about what he wanted in the scene. The scene where the police are at the door. He sat down in a chair and he leaned back.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
And Joel is a long, lanky man. And his face almost looked five inches longer than it is. And that's what I saw when I leaned back in the chair. Dare I say he almost looked like a horse when he was looking back. And that's what I saw.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
I know what God is to me. I don't believe in a Jewish God. I believe in God. I believe there is a power, and I believe that he encompasses all religions. I believe that religion is just something that we go to to make us feel better or to give us some sort of foundation because the world is so full of chaos and we can't really find ourselves.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
What I do believe is in my ancestors, and I believe that Judaism, that form of foundation, must survive because... These people gave their lives and they sacrificed and they believed and in the Jewish religion and in a state of Israel and let them have a foundation that they believe in called Judaism.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
So it's very important that I know what my roots are and what my heritage is and to serve my heritage.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
No, I don't observe the Sabbath. What I do observe is the High Holy Days because— that God who I believe in, and I live my life daily by, I hope, acting correctly to my fellow man, which is a form of prayer to me and a form of going to church or going to temple. Wow, I can't believe I just said going to church. I believe that is my way of serving God. I believe I'm a good person.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
and I really do try and do unto others as I would myself. So I do go to Rosh Hashanah, and I do go to Yom Kippur, and I am very observant about that. Part of it's karma. Part of it is, hey, don't tilt the boat. Don't rock the boat right now. Just keep going. And it's also the acknowledgment of my parents, my grandparents, and all those heritage. But I can't believe that my—
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
How my genetics have just dissipated over the years so that they started out as rabbis in the 1600s, and this is what we end up with? Me, Richard Kind? That's horrible. But I do try and study as much as I can and read and try and be up on news and be as responsible a citizen as I can to serve those rabbis who were there at the time.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Yeah. Being an actor, it's abnormal. It's an anomaly. It's unnatural for a man to get up on a stage in front of people. It's unnatural to be in front of a camera while 50 to 100 people are behind the camera. And pretend that you're somebody else and just lay bare your emotions or pretend you're somebody else. It's unnatural. You know how people are scared of getting attention.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
And I'm waving my arms going, look at me, look at me, look at me. And yet with that look at me, look at me, look at me comes a fear of what I said earlier. I'm a fraud. Am I good enough? I don't know whether or not what I'm doing. And I think any actor worth his salt would like to be better and give a better performance than what they gave. There's, oh my gosh, did I do it correctly?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Should I do it again? I need affirmation all the time. It's why I like live theater. Even if it's a drama, I can feel the audience listening to me, liking me. There's no bottom to the urn of love that I need. That is lack of confidence. And yet my ego says, go out and do it and do it and do it louder than everybody else. It's who I am. I'm oversized in my voice. I'm loud in my opinions.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
When I'm opinionated, I'm really loud. And even my acting by a funny line that my friend Craig Bierko said in a toast once he goes, the astronauts were up in space and they saw two things, the Great Wall of China and every acting choice Richard Kind ever made.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
It's so funny. It's so funny. Is it how I chose to live my life? No, I wouldn't choose it, but it's what I'm saddled with.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Sure. Sure. So this mother is making her teenage son's bed, and she's tucking in the sheets, and she reaches underneath, and she pulls out a magazine of bondage, of, like, handcuffs and whips, and she goes, oh, my God. So the husband comes home. She goes, honey, honey, honey, look what I found under Timmy's bed. He goes, oh, my God. She goes, what are we going to do?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
That's great. Oh, I got lots of them. Nobody tells a joke better than I do.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Oh, thank you. Terry, this was fun. I enjoyed it.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
from the corner of Sunset and Gower in Los Angeles. It's Everybody's Live with John Mulaney.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
I don't know anything about Gene Simmons. My reference about Gene Simmons is Kiss, seeing him with makeup, and then John sent me the very contentious interview you had with him. So I said, oh, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be that contentious, very, very, I don't want to say stoic, but he was not even somber, but he was still. And he just talks these awful things. He was awful to you.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Evidently. Don't expect it from me. I'm not that kind of person.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Yeah, he didn't. I've got to say this about that show. We were supposed to do six last May, Friday and then Monday through Friday. And he said, even if we get moon landing ratings, we're not doing any more. So you can imagine my surprise when I read he's doing 12 more. It didn't even say whether or not I was coming back.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Then when I spoke to him, I said, listen, John, you don't have to ask me to do it. You know, it was six and out. And he goes, I go, I won't be insulted. He goes, I'd be very insulted. But he didn't even call me. And then, oh, my gosh. Then I find out we're doing 12. This is not what I was born to do. It was a lark when I did the first six. It was fun. Oh, my gosh. Now it's a job.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Now it's I better be good. We're on live all over the world on Netflix, all over the world. What if I say something that's so unfunny or, God forbid, something I would regret saying? I can't take it back. I'm scared.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
That's part of the fun. Somebody asked, is this the largest audience you've ever played to? I said, yes. The world is the largest audience I've ever played to.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
I didn't know I would like it that way because my brain, much less my career, has gone through different permutations over the years. When I was a kid... You know, a kid lies in bed and dreams of being center fielder for the Yankees or, you know, being an astronaut, being a rock star. I wanted to be a movie star. I wanted to be up and, you know, on the big screen.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
The funny thing is when I was angry at my parents, I wasn't going to write them a note that I'm running away. I was going to make a film and show it in the theater. That's how I was going to tell them I'm running away. A film about them? And go, I'll show you. I'm going to go make it big. And you'll see. You'll see. You'll be sorry that you didn't let me go see that movie.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
And that's what I thought about. So, you know, it was on. That's what it was. And I had a dream. My grandparents used to take me to Broadway because they lived in New York. We lived near. We lived in Pennsylvania in Bucks County. And so I would come where I was from. My joke is you either went to the Spectrum to see the Rolling Stones or you went to Madison Square Garden.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
I went to Madison Square Garden. All my friends went to the Spectrum and still live in Philly. I went to New York because that's what I knew. My grandparents showed me the city. And I wanted to be Zero Mostel. Zero Mostel and Robert Preston. That's who I wanted to be.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Listen, your intro was really good because you pointed out things I'm very proud of. A lot of people just look at the IMDb page and give some little credit of a movie that I don't even remember doing. But I liked what you mentioned. The thing is, when you look me up, you see a lot of the movies and TV shows. But I did an opera at New York City Opera.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
You really did your work. Yeah, that's a good one.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Everything. I got an IMDB page longer than a wizard's beard.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You got a list of problems longer than a wizard's beard. Man, I said that already. What else is long?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
CBS receipt. That's funny. Pretend I said that.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not a needle mover. And that's by design. I've spent the past 40 years striking the perfect balance between constantly working and never getting bugged in a deli. And another thing.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
I mistimed it. You overshot. Never chase the big time. The big time is bad news. That's when the fighting starts. People get desperate. Friends turn on each other. What you want is the medium time. Never above number five on the call sheet of life. That's happiness. Look at me. I work every day of my life doing what I love. Well, not today. Today I had a doctor's appointment. I'm fine.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
And then I walk by here, I see the spread, I put some tissue in my collar, and I pretend like I'm working here. What is this, anyway? Euphoria. Did I guest on this show? Eh, it doesn't matter. The important thing is... I don't have time for this!
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Oh, my gosh. That conversation was longer than a CBS receipt. That's funny. I just made that up.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Sure. And it was. And it's hilarious and I'm mortified. But it's hilarious. It is a parody. I say yes to a lot of things. I'm in so many things. You know, I'll go back to the question you asked because you addressed George, who is my dear friend. And remember, I came up in the business with him. And my joke was, is that at the time that we worked together, I was the handsome one.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
And then our careers went a different way. So he can't go out. like I can go out. He can't even go to a bar the way that I can go to a bar. He's going to get bothered. You get tired of that. And you realize, dare I say it, you don't deserve it. You're a little bit of a fraud.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Oh, every day I feel like a fraud. Every single day. I'm waiting for the world to say, I'm not that talented. I don't have that. I'm not that good. Every day I wake up like that. Every day. But a flip side of that, a friend of mine said, I may not always be great anymore, but I think I'm good enough to never stink. You know what I mean? I'm not going to be bad. I'll be fine.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
There are there are parts that I hope I'm great in. And I always yearn not just to be great, but to be better than everybody else in a scene. I want to be great. But if you're playing tennis with a better tennis player, it's just not going to happen. So there were some times when I say, you know what? You're not going to win an Academy Award for this role. Just do it correctly.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Richard Kind / Melinda French Gates
Don't try and stand out. Don't try and steal. Just do it. Just do the part. And that's a very different way to come to set.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
All righty. It was one of those nights for Anthony Carter, 42, two years unemployed, two years separated from his wife and stepdaughter, six months into cocaine sobriety, and recently moved into his late parents' apartment on Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Went to be alone with his thoughts, alone with his losses. was not survivable.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
So he did what he always did, hit the streets, meaning hit the bars on Lenox, one after the other, finding this one too ghetto, that one too Scandinavian tourist, this one too loud, that one too quiet, on and on, taking just a few sips of his drink in each one, dropping dollars and heading out for the next establishment, like an 80-proof Goldilocks.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
thinking maybe this next place, this next random conversation, would be the trigger for some kind of epiphany that would show him a new way to be. But it was all part of a routine that never led him anywhere but back to the apartment. This he knew. This he had learned over and over. But maybe this time is a drug. You never know is a drug. So out the door he went.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
Well, you know, it's just some people have like this constant state of low-key agitation that the thing, the very thing that's going to make you whole is like one micro dot outside your fingertips. And then you can't find it at all and repeat if necessary. Right. It was a level of dissatisfaction I felt. But I don't feel that anymore. I grew out of it. And now I'm kind of, I wouldn't say chill.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
I'll never be chill. But at least I'm more relaxed and settled than I've ever been.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
Well, everybody was, you know, the first wave. But on a writing level, Level, what happened to me is I love to go out on the street, talk to people. It's a lot more fun than writing. And I couldn't do that. I couldn't get fed. And it's called fiction. You know, you make things up. But I'm so addicted to that type of interaction in the service of a novel.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
You know, just because it happened doesn't make it art. But the trick is to go home and make it art. And I couldn't go out for years. I mean, I could, but not to like meet people. Hi, how you doing? What's your name? Shake my hand. And that sort of messed me up.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
Just being on the street. It's just the random things that you overhear or the conversations you get into because so many people... Harlem is like a little different than the rest of New York in terms of people make eye contact, people nod, even if they don't know you. If you say something, they're going to say something back.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
And next thing you know, you're standing there on a corner and you're talking. And I've never met a person who hasn't come up at least with one thunderbolt of offhand observation or commentary.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
I knew not to curse on Yom Kippur, so God wouldn't put me in the book of death. Did you fast? I don't know. I went to Hebrew school until I was bar mitzvahed. And then after that, my relationship with being Jewish was pretty much... The only time I really felt Jewish is, besides Sandy Koufax not pitching, is when there was an anti-Semitic moment, an incident.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
Then I felt very, you know, tight with my religion. Other than that, I was pretty much a humanist. I didn't raise my children to be—I made a deal with my wife. I won't circumcise them if you don't christen them. I mean, it was sort of like a humanistic relationship.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
Yeah, I think. How would I know? Oh, I'm taking the kids out for a walk. I'll be back. Why are they all dressed up in white? Oh, it's a nice day. White looks good in April. Who knows? But I imagine that we kept to that. Yes.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
It was just my feeling. Yeah. But it's a very complicated thing that he's setting up here, which is to say, you know, it would be easiest for me if I could find in the book what he says.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
Yeah, he's a little bit of a celebrity because he is the Lazarus Man. He has survived 36 hours in the rubble when no one detected any kind of sign of life. And yet he was miraculously found. This is what he's saying to people to give them hope, you know, at this funeral for a young kid who was shot trying to... Get in between two gangs to calm people down.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
As I said before, I've never been a deeply religious individual. And I still don't consider myself one. But I feel guided now. And my purpose in being here today is to deliver to you a message that just might make it possible to accept your aching hearts and continue to live the life that he has given you. For a brief moment, he stood there speechless, amazed at what he was about to say.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
What I have learned since that day in the rubble is that whatever befalls you in life, whatever appears to you as an impossible burden, an unbearable weight, in the end, if you persevere, if you hold fast, will turn out to be a gift. Whatever befalls you, no matter how heartbreaking or onerous, will turn out to be the best thing, the perfect thing, because of what is to come out of it.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
In fact, it will be the best thing that could possibly happen to you.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
When I read my reviews and they say what has resonated with them, they'll use words like gratitude. But I wasn't thinking, oh, I'm going to really use gratitude as a theme. I mean, the guy just survived everything. a miraculous thing. And you got to be grateful for that. And all of a sudden, in that gratefulness, you see how precious life is because you almost were not here anymore.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
And if you're inspired, you want to spread that message, the getting of grace. He just says at some point, every minute of every day, everything is precious. When I was pulled out of that rubble and I could take my first undirt caked breath, all I wanted to do was to live and live and live. It just happened to me in a way that very low key happened.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
I feel like I am the person I was when I talked to you the last time, but I'm not the person I was when I talked to you the last time. And I'm not religious, believe me. It's happiness. I just somehow discovered peace. In my life. Like, my earlier books, there was always this propelling anxiety in me that I have to make it, like, dazzling and spectacular and blow people away.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
And it was very high-pitched in me and not healthy. But I've settled down, you know. My heart has lowered the volume and deepened the base, it feels like. And so I write a book like this where... You know, other than this calamitous event of a five-story tenement pancaking on itself, everything else is people's lives with that in the background of their experience on that day.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
No, I haven't. But even with Clockers, which I wrote in 1990, 89, 91, I was really aware of the whole notion of cultural piracy and, like, how dare I write about someone who, quote, unquote, you have no idea what it's like to be me. And my responsibility is to create a character that that is as fully three-dimensional as I can make that character.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
And in terms of racial sensitivity, well, listen, if you're writing to the stereotype of a person of that race, then you deserve to be pilloried.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
No, you know, I said that to somebody. Well, somebody, when I was writing Clockers, and somebody said, well, how can you write about African-Americans when you're not African-American yourself? And when I said... Well, I grew up in, you know, like a housing project that was very mixed, schools that were very mixed.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
She said, you sound like a southerner, you know, who's saying, I was very close to those people, you know, trying to say, like, I know those people. And that struck me. I mean, the fact that you grow up with somebody, just because it happens, like I said, doesn't make it art. Just because someone exists... doesn't make them an artist. And it just all comes back to just do the best you can.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
Do the best you can. You're not just hatched from an egg. You know, make everybody equally human and then let it go.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
I just feel having children... molded me, remolded me. It wasn't all about myself. To finally have people in your life that you're more scared for than you're scared of anything for yourself. To finally have people in your life that you just surrender to... and educate you by just being who they are and evolving from year to year to year. They made me.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
Before my kids, I was just a guy, and it just reawakened something in me that I didn't really know, this profound keenness and tenderness towards them where it wasn't all about me anymore. In fact, you know, I'm not saying I became like not, you know, I surrendered to them. But it was such a rich and profound thing that they pulled up in me. That I was just so different. They raised me.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
Yeah, I love that. Not because it helped me escape from myself. Because it was just natural. I mean, it's like Anthony comes out and, you know, he just wants to be of service. You know, I've never made these connections to my life in the book before this interview. But... I mean, the joy of thinking about somebody.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Why Do We Itch? / Writer Richard Price
And they come out, they drop into your arms, and God says, go, you know, and you go. And it's a lifetime thing. I mean, before that, I think I was my own baby.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
He's a guy who always liked actors better than singers, but he loved when he heard his songs sung beautifully. But during a show, he wanted it acted better. He loved actors. He would always check in. Are you having fun? Does this sound good? He wrote for the actor and yet was so specific. If I put a the instead of an an in the lyric, he would correct me.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Hanging on my wall in my house, one of my most treasured things is just typed out lyrics, you know, maybe three, four lines in the song. And he would then cross it out and put it in pencil because he famously wrote in pencil the changes. And he was diligent on every comma, every word. He really worked hard. I will say this. This is sort of funny. The first time I met him, I went up to him.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
It was at Hal's Christmas party, Hal Prince's Christmas party. I went up to him and I said, do you know who I am? I had a beard. And I go, do you know who I am? He said, yes, you're Richard Kind and the beard goes. That was the first thing he said to him.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Also, one other thing, a short thing is there's a thing called zits probe, which is when the orchestra, you hear the orchestra play what you're going to hear for the rest of the run. You've been only accompanied by a piano. Now you've got an orchestra. So we're doing zits probe and I go to the bathroom at the same time he goes to the bathroom. I didn't harmonize a lot.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
There were a lot of just solos in the show. And I said, thank you so much for not writing harmonies. I can't do them. And he said he can't do them either. He can write them, but he can't sing them either. His ear isn't good enough.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Yes, I was very scared. I was nervous the whole time. I was a smoker at the time. That's when I quit smoking.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
You have to. I had to do it well. I know what smoking can do. You have to have breath control. You have to go to the end of the line. You can't take a pause in the middle of one of his words or one of his sentences. Actually, if you're in a sitcom, you can't take a breath in the middle of a line because in order to get the proper laugh, you have to take it to the end of the sentence.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Otherwise, the audience may hear where the joke is going to go or you can't surprise them. And there's a rhythm to a joke. You have to be able to control what that rhythm is. So smoking is your enemy. You have to have lung control.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
You don't. For me, I sang—my audition song was Hey There. I would sing that. I'd sing—the big song was There Is Nothing Like a Dame. I got to sing that pretty well. One night— One night, Theodore Bickell was in the restaurant. I wanted to impress him so much. So I wanted to sing There Is Nothing Like a Dame, which goes up to a high C, I think, or a G, let's say.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
A G. It goes up to a high G, which was a note at the time that I could reach. So we had a replacement pianist that night. The guy who usually played it for me was not there. So he goes, what key do you sing it in? I go, I don't know. And he goes, well, maybe it's C and C. And as I'm singing it, I'm going, this doesn't feel right. So that by the time I go, like that, and I hit the wrong note. Ah!
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
It was horrible. And the whole restaurant stopped. I did not impress Theodore Bacall. I ran back to the kitchen and the chef, who was a lovely guy, and he was French, he goes, oh, Richie, that did not sound good. It was hilarious.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
God, no, I'd starve. Listen, Terry, I sing, but I'm not a singer. And that I could do Sondheim, I can hit notes, but I can't harmonize. And I'm not a singer. People ask me to sing. It's like I'm an improviser, but I'm not a great improviser. I can improvise. There are great singers and there are great improvisers. I'm very good. It's just in my bag of tricks.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
So I can sing a song, but I'm not great. But I'm very loud. I'm from the Ethel Merman School of Music, and that's what I do.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
You're talking about two teachers, right? Oh, my high school teacher. I went to school with a great actor named Robert Curtis Brown. You'd know him as the yuppie in trading places. Now, he's had a career that's much larger. But whenever I mentioned his name, that's his most famous role. He was a great actor. He is a great actor and a handsome guy.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
So I had my high school teacher say, you know, go go into your dad's business because Hollywood is looking for Robert. OK, that's who they want. I acknowledge that. Then I went to college as a pre-law so that I would take over my dad's store. Frank Galati, a very well-known Chicago theater maven at the Goodman, at Steppenwolf, and a teacher at Northwestern. So when I... got his advice.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
He said, look, go be a producer. And so you get to be in showbiz, but your business, I go, no, it's either I'm an actor or I'm a rich jeweler. And I said, he said, well, you're not going to get famous or get known until you're in your 30s when you sort of grow into who you are. Did I believe him? Terry, I wish that I could say this is what I chose to do.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
All I did was say yes to whatever was presented and my path was created by that. I didn't set out to join Second City. I went to some place in Chicago, Practical Theater Company. They saw me and said, do you want to do Second City? I said, yeah, well, Second City taught me a lot.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Four and a half years, all of that way station of waiting for roles and waiting for roles was spent on stage and getting paid and developing into the actor who I was in front of 400 people a night.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Well, okay. My dad didn't trust me with the beautiful jewels or the expensive stuff. I sold lighters and sterling silver keychains and the pens and stuff like that, maybe candelabras, but I didn't sell the expensive stuff. And I was no good. I was a good salesman. My dad was a great salesman. I'd spend 45 minutes with some guy saying, oh, you see these pearls? You see how they're graduated?
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
You see how this set of the strand, the pearls match each other best? And then my dad would come up. I've been with the guy for 40 minutes. And he would come up. He goes, Bill, Mary wants a strand of pearls. And he'd go, yeah. And he goes, Richie, wrap these up. And he'd pick up the pearls and said, I would go. And that's what my dad did. I worked and I worked and I worked.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Now, there's a very funny story where I had a Dunhill lighter, okay? And I'm showing this woman various Dunhill lighters, which are beautiful lighters. And I pull one out and she says, I'll take this one. And I write down $25. And she says, no, excuse me, I think that's $250. I go, no, no, it's $25. And I show her and she goes, no, that says $250. And I look, I go...
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Oh, my God, $250 for a lighter? So that's the kind of salesman I was. Yeah, I was not great.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Every answer you need is in the script. Just read the script. You don't have to do any research. Certainly the book of Job wouldn't have done anything. I didn't think that was telling the book of Job. I thought I was talking about this guy named Arthur Gopnik and these were his circumstances. And you play pretend.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
If it meshes into what you think is the book of Job and you interpret all of that, God bless you. But no, no, no, that's not what I did at all. I just played the scene. What are my circumstances? How do I feel? And you just play pretend. That's what it is.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
They're great. I love them. You're always at the height of your game. I was surprised at how word perfect they like their script. But they should because they're great writers. Sometimes Joel would take a physical position. That sort of told me everything about what he wanted in the scene. The scene where the police are at the door. He sat down in a chair and he leaned back.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
And Joel is a long, lanky man. And his face almost looked... five inches longer than it is. And that's what I saw in when I leaned back in the chair. Dare I say, he almost looked like a horse when he was looking back. And that's what I saw. So I played pretend that I was a lovely man, even though I am a poker player. You said a gambler.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
I think of myself as a card player, not as necessarily a gambler. And I don't know why, but when you said a gambler, I said, no, I'm not a gambler. I'm a poker player. and that's different I'm a gamesman I'm not a gambler Does that make sense to you?
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Yes, I had a skill, and they're not letting me play cards anymore. Why aren't they doing it? Why? I can't even play cards anymore. And what a sad man. I'm a very simple man, as opposed to my brother, who's a serious man. I'm a simple man. That's what I saw. I'm even talking like him. As I'm described, this is, I don't do that. So that's who the guy was.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
I know what God is to me. I don't believe in a Jewish God. I believe in God. I believe there is a power, and I believe that he encompasses all religions. I believe that religion is just something that we go to to make us feel better or to give us some sort of foundation because the world is so full of chaos and we can't really find ourselves. What I do believe is in my ancestors.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
And I believe that Judaism, that form of foundation, must survive because these people gave their lives and they sacrificed and they believed. and in the Jewish religion and in the state of Israel and let them have a foundation that they believe in called Judaism. So it's very important that I know what my roots are and what my heritage is and to serve my heritage.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
No, I don't observe the Sabbath. What I do observe is the High Holy Days because— that God who I believe in, and I live my life daily by, I hope, acting correctly to my fellow man, which is a form of prayer to me and a form of going to church or going to temple. Wow, I can't believe I just said going to church. I believe that is my way of serving God. I believe I'm a good person.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
And I try and do, I really do try and do unto others as I would myself. So I do go to Rosh Hashanah and I do go to Yom Kippur and I am very observant about that. Part of it's karma. Part of it is, hey, don't tilt the boat, you know, don't rock the boat right now. Just keep going. And It's also the acknowledgement of my parents, my grandparents, and all those heritage.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
But I can't believe how my genetics have just dissipated over the years so that they started out as rabbis in the 1600s, and this is what we end up with? Me, Richard Kind? That's horrible. But I do try and study as much as I can and read and try and be up on news and be as responsible a citizen as I can to serve those rabbis who were there at the time.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
I don't know anything about Gene Simmons. My reference about Gene Simmons is Kiss, seeing him with makeup. And then John sent me the very contentious interview you had with him. So I said, oh, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be that contentious, very, very, I don't want to say stoic, but he was not even somber, but he was still. And he just talks these awful things. He was awful to you.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Yeah. Being an actor, it's abnormal. It's an anomaly. It's unnatural for a man to get up on a stage in front of people. It's unnatural to be in front of a camera while 50 to 100 people are behind the camera. And pretend that you're somebody else and just lay bare your emotions or pretend you're somebody else. It's unnatural. You know how people are scared of getting attention.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
And I'm waving my arms going, look at me, look at me, look at me. And yet with that look at me, look at me, look at me comes a fear of what I said earlier. I'm a fraud. Am I good enough? I don't know whether or not what I'm doing. And I think any actor worth his salt would like to be better and give a better performance than what they gave. There's, oh my gosh, did I do it correctly?
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Should I do it again? I need affirmation all the time. It's why I like live theater. Even if it's a drama, I can feel the audience listening to me, liking me. And I'm an empty urn. There's no bottom to the urn of love that I need. That is lack of confidence. And yet my ego says, go out and do it and do it and do it louder than everybody else. who I am. I'm oversized in my voice.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
I'm loud in my opinions. When I'm opinionated, I'm really loud. And even my acting. A funny line that my friend Craig Bierko said in a toast once, he goes, the astronauts were up in space and they saw two things, the Great Wall of China and every acting choice Richard Kind ever made.
Fresh Air
Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
It's so funny. It's so funny. Is it how I chose to live my life? No, I wouldn't choose it, but it's what I'm saddled with.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Sure. So this mother is making her teenage son's bed, and she's tucking in the sheets, and she reaches underneath, and she pulls out a magazine of bondage, of, like, handcuffs and whips, and she goes, oh, my God. So the husband comes home. She goes, honey, honey, honey, look what I found under Timmy's bed. He goes, oh, my God. She goes, what are we going to do?
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
That's great. Oh, I got lots of them. Nobody tells a joke better than I do.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Oh, thank you. Terry, this was fun. I enjoyed it. You're great. You're great.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Evidently. Don't expect it from me. I'm not that kind.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Yeah, he didn't. I've got to say this about that show. We were supposed to do six last May, Friday and then Monday through Friday. And he said, even if we get moon landing ratings, we're not doing any more. So you can imagine my surprise when I read he's doing 12 more. It didn't even say whether or not I was coming back.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Then when I spoke to him, I said, listen, John, you don't have to ask me to do it. You know, it was six and out. And he goes, I go, I won't be insulted. He goes, I'd be very insulted. But he didn't even call me. And then, oh, my gosh. Then I find out we're doing 12. This is not what I was born to do. It was a lark when I did the first six. It was fun. Oh, my gosh. Now it's a job.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Now it's I better be good. We're on live all over the world on Netflix, all over the world. What if I say something that's so unfunny or, God forbid, something I would regret saying? I can't take it back. I'm scared.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
That's part of the fun. Somebody asked, is this the largest audience you've ever played to? I said, yes. The world is the largest audience I've ever played to. Yeah.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
I didn't know I would like it that way because my brain, much less my career, has gone through different permutations over the years. When I was a kid... You know, a kid lies in bed and dreams of being center fielder for the Yankees or, you know, being an astronaut, being a rock star. I wanted to be a movie star. I wanted to be up and, you know, on the big screen.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
The funny thing is when I was angry at my parents, I wasn't going to write them a note that I'm running away. I was going to make a film and show it in the theater. That's how I was going to tell them I'm running away. A film about them? Yeah, and go, I'll show you. I'm going to go make it big and you'll see. You'll see. You'll be sorry that you didn't let me go see that movie.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
And that's what I thought about. So, you know, it was, that's what it was. And I had a dream. My grandparents used to take me to Broadway because they lived in New York. We lived near, we lived in Pennsylvania in Bucks County. And so I would come where I was from. My joke is you either went to the Spectrum to see the Rolling Stones or you went to Madison Square Garden.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
I went to Madison Square Garden. All my friends went to the Spectrum and still live in Philly. I went to New York because that's what I knew. My grandparents showed me the city. And I wanted to be Zero Mostel. Zero Mostel and Robert Preston. That's who I wanted to be.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
And I did. And the producers. Listen, your intro was really good because you pointed out things I'm very proud of. A lot of people just look at the IMDb page and give some little credit of a movie that I don't even remember doing. But I liked what you mentioned. The thing is, when you look me up, you see a lot of the movies and TV shows. But I did an opera at New York City Opera.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
All right. I'll tell you a story. I knew Matt Perry when he was a kid. And we would go out drinking.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Right. Yes, that Matt Perry. And we used to, you know, as a young kid, we would go to the Formosa. All of our friends, we would drink. If he could sit at a typewriter and type everything he wanted in his life, from a dog to what the house would look like, to what kind of car, to what his girlfriend would look like, everything came true.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
And I saw that it doesn't bring happiness, and I thought it would. So anyway, I went to Vegas with Matt around two or three weeks after Friends premiered. It was September, October. We started at one side of the casino and went through and was looking both ways to see if he was recognized. And he just walked through the casino. The following January, we did the same thing.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
He took two steps into the casino and that's as far as he went. And that was one of the saddest things. It's what everybody dreams of and they don't realize that they're dreaming of prison. And it's prison. He doesn't have a life. I get to walk down the streets of New York and get to where I'm going. I will walk down the street and somebody will say, Mr. Kind, you've changed my life.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
You're wonderful. You're a treasure. Oh, my gosh, you're the best. We love you. My whole family loves you. And that's one person. And I passed 250 people who don't know who I am. So it's wonderful to get the accolades and it's humbling to just keep walking. I like to keep walking now. When I was a kid, I wanted to be stopped by everybody. Now I have a life.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
You really did your work. Yeah, that's a good one.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Everything. I got an IMDB page longer than a wizard's beard.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
You got a list of problems longer than a wizard's beard. Man, I said that already. What else is long?
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not a needle mover. And that's by design. I've spent the past 40 years striking the perfect balance between constantly working and never getting bugged in a deli. And another thing.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
I mistimed it. You overshot. Never chase the big time. The big time is bad news. That's when the fighting starts. People get desperate. Friends turn on each other. What you want is the medium time. Never above number five on the call sheet of life. That's happiness. Look at me. I work every day of my life doing what I love. Well, not today. Today I had a doctor's appointment. I'm fine.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
And then I walk by here, I see the spread, I put some tissue in my collar, and I pretend like I'm working here.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
What is this, anyway? Euphoria. Did I guest on this show? Eh, it doesn't matter. The important thing is... I don't have time for this!
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Oh, my gosh. That conversation was longer than a CBS receipt. That's funny. I just made that up.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Sure. And it was. And it's hilarious and I'm mortified. But it's hilarious. It is a parody. I say yes to a lot of things. I'm in so many things. You know, I'll go back to the question you asked because you addressed George, who is my dear friend. And remember, I came up in the business with him. And... My joke was is that at the time that we worked together, I was the handsome one.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
And then our careers went a different way. So he can't go out like I can go out. He can't even go to a bar the way that I can go to a bar. He's going to get bothered. You get tired of that. And you realize, dare I say it, you don't deserve it. You're a little bit of a fraud.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Oh, every day I feel like a fraud. Every single day. I'm waiting for the world to say, I'm not that talented. I don't have that. I'm not that good. Every day I wake up like that. Every day. But a flip side of that, a friend of mine said, I may not always be great anymore, but I think I'm good enough to never stink. You know what I mean? I'm not going to be bad. I'll be fine.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
There are there are parts that I hope I'm great in. And I always yearn not just to be great, but to be better than everybody else in a scene. I want to be great. But if you're playing tennis with a better tennis player, it's just not going to happen. So there were some times when I say, you know what? You're not going to win an Academy Award for this role. Just do it correctly.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Don't try and stand out. Don't try and steal. Just do it. Just do the part. And that's a very different way to come to set.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
Whatever this race we're in, okay, you win. It's done! And now that you've won, get out of my life! It used to be fun to watch you scheme and even be a part of it.
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Richard Kind Is Glad He's Not That Famous
At the start of it, it got to be fun to stand and beam at the suckers. But I learned that from you. I thought that we'd go from scheme to dream.