Richard Kind
Appearances
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.