April 8, 2024 • 51 mins
From 'Carol and Company' to 'Mad About You' to 'Spin City,' Richard Kind found consistent success since his days on stage.
He tells us how he crafted an incredible career, the job he was fired from, the job he missed out on, the money he lent to friends, and his life-long bromance with George Clooney.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey Dude the nineties called with Christine Taylor and David Lasher,
Hey Everybody, Welcome back to Hey Dude. The nineties called
I am your host, Christine, and.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm your other host, David.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
We're hosts of Hey Doe the nineties called podcast Nice
to See Nice to see you too. It is a
miserable day in New York. I've heard blustery, windy, cold rain,
like not the pretty, like refreshing spring rain. It is
like things are blowing all over it is calling.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
It an atmospheric river like they do in no.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I think that that's that's that's saved for La. Yeah,
it's just cold city rain here. But how have things
been for you?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, I guess the highlight of my weekend was my
daughter Hannah was home for spring break. She had gone
to Miami and came home to spend four or five
days with us. So we just had such a nice time,
played some tennis, and we had dinners and just really
caught up with her, which is like you know when
your kid goes off to college, like every day you
(01:14):
get to spend with them, Like, oh, you want to
play tennis with me, I'm there, I'm showing up, tell
me more exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I want to hear everything. Oh and our guest is
here in the waiting room, and it is the one
and only Richard kind lets in, fine him.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
In, all right, the greatest Richard. You know, it's really
this is the highlight of my day ours too, that
this is.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
This is David Lasher, my my podcast co host. Nice,
My god, Richard. I feel like I know you.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
You're one of those actors and I'm sure you get
this all the time that people feel like they've known
you their whole life. I mean, and your voice as well.
It's just so recognizable. It's scary.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It is scary.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
I I'm sorry, it's it's yes. Even my wife and
children are leaving me. They just go, will not take
this voice anymore?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Awful?
Speaker 5 (02:11):
It's awful. Now, Yes, I know, I've been around. And
when you run it to people who think that they
know you and whether they went to school with you
or you're going to bed and then they go oh yeah,
yeah yeah, and they go, oh are you acting anymore?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Oh god, they really are out of touch. I feel
like you have to be. And obviously I have known
you for thirty plus years. I mean, you were one
of the first people. You were one of the first
people I met when I moved to Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Crazy and David.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
It was, in fact, to tie this all together, I
met Richard when I when David Pressman, who then became
my roommate, and I were doing an episode of Blossom.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Is that how you met David.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
That's how I met David Pressman and Andrew Hill Newman.
The three of us were guest stars on an episode
of Blossom, which this David Lasher starred on. And Richard
you came over to the dressing room you were shooting.
Was it Herman's head?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
No, the city?
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Was it? What?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It was at Sunset Gower Studios in the early nineties.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I must have. It must have been a guest thing.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, yeah, and I had been.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I did because I.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Met David Pressman, because David Pressman, because Matt Perry was
guesting on Empty Nest with me, and also in this game.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That's the connection. Because Paul Waite and Tony Thomas produced Blossom,
they also produced Empty Nest. That was probably I.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Know that that's okay, But that's my connection to you.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Is that mar eighties was that was that was Empty Nest? Eighties,
late eighties.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I don't know if they were still doing in the nineties.
I'm sorry. I thought maybe that was the connection.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
No, but I mean that's how I met David.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
Was through Matt, who was guesting that day, and I
talked them to play poker in my dressing room.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Oh God, So you're the one responsible for all of
all of the gambling.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
I really I am, and I'm very, very disheartened by
how the gambling got out.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Of hand, because it really got out of hand.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
I mean, you got people playing, you lose thousands of
dollars in an evening.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Well, yes, yes, I think that's what started to happen
with a lot. I mean I know for a fact
because my brother got into some of those games and
he was working as a PA. He was not a
working actor, and he would go to these poker games.
That's what Brian and Matt Levin were roommates, and they
were going to these poker games as if they were
(04:54):
like employed actors. Losing money. It was You're right, it
did get out of hand.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
I'll tell you the worst thing because in poker you
have to be cut through, right, I mean, you know
you've got to.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
It's it's it's an awful thing. I mean, you really
have to lie.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
You know, you don't have a good hand when you
have a great hands, it's underhandedness. And I look at
those guys, and I was making a decent livan.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I never made the living that they all ended up making.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
But I would sometimes fold or I wouldn't bet because
I didn't want them to get hurt.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
That's the opposite of poker.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I was going to say, a poker player with a
heart is a crappy poker player.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
You know, I have.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
I have a very very silly, stupid game here in
New York or where we play.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
It's a silly, silly game.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
Many of the players are very well known, and some
of the players or theater people who don't make the
kind of money that we're lucky enough to be making.
And I or When's a musician and an actor, and
it just it kills me to take.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
From you throw the games because you feel bad for
the other players. That is a beauty. It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
It is, I know, and I I am proud of it,
and I'm disgusted by it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, I must they You're the worst overa player alive.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I was gonna say, Richard, I feel like you are
you know we I have known you for a million
years and you have always been within our friend group
the most, the person who everyone does the most impressions of.
And literally I told when I was texting you about
(06:48):
coming on the show. We had Bonnie Hunt on a
few weeks ago. She incredible. I mean, it's my it's
my life's mission to be her best friend. I just
don't live in la and I want to spend more
time with her because I think she's incredible. But she
gave you so much credit about at the very beginning,
(07:10):
you loaning her some money to go off and take
a chance at something. And she did this great impression
of you of how how because she said, let me
pay you that a little bit.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
It's okay, let's start with this.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
I left a lot of people money, and in the
day it was a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
It wasn't that much, and it wasn't such a big deal.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
They were going to pay it back, and what does
it matter if it's in the bank or if it's
helping somebody out.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
And it really wasn't that much at the time.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
It seems like that much, but I didn't but I
have there's a list of people who I gave the money,
and uh, and money just wants to be like Carol Burnett.
Have somebody who gave the money and then they went
off to New York and that.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Became a stuff.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
I didn't do that much now her impression of everybody
does an impression of me.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
I can't do it. Impression of me.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I can't do a richer kind. I can't do it.
I can't do it.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Yeah, most people can. There are only a few people
who do a really good impression of me. But do
you know guy named Tom Virtue? Would you know that name?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
That's a familiar name.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
But he was a father on Even Stevens. He's an actor,
wonderful actor. Doesn't work as much as I'd like him
do or he'd like to, but he does. I went
to college with him. He does such a good impression.
He knows what I'm going to say. It's not just
that he does an impression of me. It sounds like me.
(08:42):
He does an impression of what I would say. And
the only way and I've said this on another podcast,
the only impression that I could do with me, and
it's easy, is one time we were at a poker
game and they said, can you And we're going back
to the nineties, since dude, this is the nineties.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
The reference in the nineties.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
Is someone said, Richard, you're going to be playing this
week and I said, no, I'm doing a commission.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
But this is how it sad. No dead waiting a
COMMISSI that's good.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
That's a good Richard kind impression that Donnie Hunt said,
what did she say? I don't want it in installments.
I wanted in one loveth sum who said that that was.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
What Bonnie said, is the way you said to repay
her it? Not you do want installments just when.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
She was ready, because these people felt guilty that they
had borrowed. But there's no reason to feel guilty. But
the hell, it's it's money. You're my friend. So she said,
I'll pay you back one hundred dollars a week ago. No, no, no,
I don't want that. First of all, I lose track,
So don't think it was so uh, you know, gracious
(09:53):
on me, but I would lose track.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And I go, no, when you have enough money, you
pay me back. I don't want it. Well, I don't
need to. What do I need to hundred.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Dollars a week, and I need She turned it into
a very funny impression.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Though, well, body hunt is the greatest.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I agree.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
And you say you want to be her best friend.
For a while, I was.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
Her best friend or one of her best friends. I
was the lucky one. She lived in my apartment while
I was up doing.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
What was I was? I?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
I think I was up in Vancouver doing a show,
and I said, stay in my apartment. Excuse you know,
can I tell you something right now? Isn't the honest
to God's truth. I know I'm a nice man. I
know I'm very philanthropic and blah blah blah. But I
was in La recently because I wanted to get out
(10:53):
of the East Coast and get away from the snow.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Kids are out of school, so I'll go there.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
I had three people living in my apartment rent free,
because one is going through a divorce, one was heavily
saddled by the strike and really didn't have much money,
and the other was a young woman who's making her
way in New York. So they were living in the
bedrooms in this apartment in New York.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
You know what, Richard, Not everybody is like that. And
I just want to say at when I look at
your career, it's remarkable that you have worked for I
don't know, thirty years consistently. But you know, what you
get back from the world, what you put out into
the universe, and I feel like you deserve everything that
you've achieved.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
I guess so. But nice people deserve nice things. I
think I'm a nice person. We don't always get it,
but yeah, I think nice people deserve nice things.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
When it comes back to you.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
And I think good people deserve to go to jail
because of the crimes they've committed.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
One times.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Let's move into the twenty twenties.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
No, No, because I what I've never heard. We have
to go backwards. We have to go like before pre nineties,
because I just want to hear and you can. I'm
sure you've told it a million times. But the brief
version or whatever version you want to tell of how
the hell you got into this industry? Was this something
from like from childhood, you were a performer, you were
(12:29):
on stage.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
I've told it before.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
Having been raised near Trent, New Jersey, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,
I would take the train into New York and I
loved Broadway.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
My grandparents lived here.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
They taught me when I got to the age to
go into New York City alone. I would come and
I would see a matinee and an evening show and
I'd go home. This is all by myself, actually with
Brian Ayani, who was a.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Really good friend. Like to say things. So I always
wanted to be an actor.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
But there are kids who want to be rock stars,
the kids who want to play center field for the Yankees.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
It doesn't happen. You talk about it, but you don't
do it.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, it's not real. It's not a reality.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
It's you know, when you're four years old, you want
to be a fire but then you want to be
an astronaut. Then you want to be a ball player,
then you want to be a rock star, and then
you go and you become an accountant.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
But I always wanted it.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
And my Kad's best friend when I was supposed to
go to law school. In the spring before I went
to law school, he said, go try acting because when
you're forty, you're going to resent your wife and your
kids because you have to keep working and make money
and you never got a shot, and they're keeping you
from it, so try it now and I was good.
(13:55):
I wasn't as good then as I am now. I
never should had the career because in retrospect I sucked.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I really was not good. But I was big and
I was loud, and I made an impression. But I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
You were You were unique, You were right?
Speaker 5 (14:13):
You could you just gonna go into soabus with this space.
It's different. It said no, nobody should, uh, And I
just tried it for one year. One year turned into
two with the four and ultimately I it took twenty years.
I became better. I it took ten years. When I
was in Second City. I started getting a sense of
(14:35):
myself and I was employed every night.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Wait, you trained at Second City.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
I didn't just train. I was on stage.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So that's where you met Bonnie.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yes, we were.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
We were on stage. We were I had been for
about two and a half years. Bonnie will tell you.
She because she's so kind, she goes I would come
to see you. She come to see Second City. But
she came and she studied me. As I've heard her
say that.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
And you're saying you weren't very good, I mean keeping
up and making it a Second City meant you were sharp,
you were quick, you were funny.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
Right for a year and a half, I was dreadful.
You must understand, and I never got great, but I
got very good. What I am is what happened was
with Tom Virtue. We were living as roommates in New
(15:29):
York and there was a group called you probably know it,
the Practical Theater Company every year Practical Theater. Yeah, it
was started by Julia Louis Dreyfus, Brad Hall, her husband
Brad Hall, Gary Kroger, and a guy named Paul Barross
who and they were all snatched up to.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Go to Saturday Night Lant.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
They were improvising in Chicago, right next to Second City,
and they said, we're all coming to New York. I
used to party with them. Why don't you go to
New York or to Chicago and do a show for
our theater company. We did Second City saw me there
and said would you come and be in Second City?
And I didn't have to go through any of the
(16:12):
may and any and through the touring company. I didn't
have to take classes. They just picked me up. Now,
trust me. There were people who made dartboards with my
face on it because they were paying their dues, and
here I just goes straight onto stage. My training was
(16:32):
in front of an audience with all these people, and
I was not good.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
What I could do was listen.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Megan Fay, who was there, said just look in my
eyes and just listen, and that is what I did.
And I'm a pretty good reactor as far as being
funny and saying funny lines.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
All right, I could be funny.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
I can say witty things, but not with the alacrity
that these people could do. I mean, some of these
people were tremendously witty and funny and heads and tails
funnier than me. But I'm a better actor than they are,
and I am a better reactor, and my sense of
reacting could take a scene into places where just funny
(17:20):
people might not.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Does that makes sense, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you really to
have both with sort of the magic the special Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
Trust me, there are people who are hilariously funny and
no story and those people are geniuses.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I was not.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
I was good, and I got better, but I was
never great. And then from there, you know, you get it.
You're on stage for four and a half years every night,
performing improvising, having a sense of confidence on stage, even the.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Worst of us can get better. And I got better.
And then I went to LA and I got work.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
And even during that work, I got better because I
don't know the camera listen to me, I'm too loud,
camera is very small, and I'm screaming like this. You
know what, because I'm on stage, I'm still performing. So
I ended up getting better over the years.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And yeah, did you have a lot of directors tell
you to bring it down?
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Bring it down? Yes?
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Well, the funniest thing you know, Christina knows Craig Vierco
who once said that the astronauts were up in space
and they saw two things, the Great Wall of China
and every acting choice Richard Kind ever made.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
That's good, That's what it is. But I got smaller.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
And I go out a camera and playing my prophone
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
But the sitcom work, the sitcom work is not so
far from a second City type.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
You correct, well, now, okay, we'll be more specific, especially
being in the nineties, for camera, sitcom in front of
an audience is very theatrical, right, I've said this before.
I got to work with two legends, Michael Fox and
Michael J. Fox and Carol Burnette.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Carol Burnette can play the camera and play the audience
at the same time.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
She's unbelievable. She's not the most subtle woman in the world.
Which she's a single camera she knows how to do it,
but when she's in front of an audience, she plays
the camera and plays the audience. Michael Fox only plays
the camera, but he needs the audience for timing. He
(19:51):
needs to play them and ride those laughs, and he's
a master of it.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Was Spin City, your first big record was it Mad
About You? Which came first?
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Mad Abact you came first? Actually I was loved.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
I came to town in October and by the end
of the month I had a series that was a
drama because coming out of Second City, I didn't want
people would know, oh, your Second City, Oh you're funny.
I didn't want people to know that it was just funny.
So I got into a very gruesome one hour TV
(20:35):
show called unsub what unsuck. I call it un somewhat
unsuck unsuck. It the was the FBI term un sub
unknown Subject. It was a cop show where we chased
serial killers. We were you know Peter Roth is yeah.
(20:58):
Peter Roth was head of Cattell at the time. Yep,
and he said, and he's right, he goes, rich we
were the first. We were the first procedural. We were
about in nineteen eighty nine maybe yeah, around that time,
and that was the first run. And m m at
Walsh who just said he was in the show with
(21:21):
me and he became a very dear friend through that.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, that was.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
It was quite it was. It wasn't a good show, No,
it was a show. But we were the first procedural.
And every time I see Peter Roth, Peter Roth is
known for hugging people, and.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
He hugs me and he goes, but you are the first,
and we were.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Then you got a show one month into coming to
LA on the air.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I mean unbelievable, Like.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
This doesn't happen, Richard, that doesn't happen.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
Okay, Well here's the thing. Okay, here's me, here's the reader.
Here's Stephen Cannell. So I'm looking at the re at
the Castigate, and right behind is Stephen Cannell, and I'm
reading this thing, and behind I see Stephen Cantighe the
(22:12):
best audition in the world. And then I find out
Stephen Cannell.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Just loves his words and he just does well.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
My god, no, he just loved he loves. He does
not for everyone.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
He loves hearing his words. So he was just but
but yes, I got I got the person. Then I
that's canceled after three well you know after well after
the first pilot episode.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I'll tell you a little thing.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
That is the night before our uh before Candle showed
Brandon Tartakov the pilot, there was a very famous incident
where Harado Rivera did a show on Witchcraft and all
the reviews were at the low point of TV, this
(23:01):
is how much lower can TV get. He then sees
the show the next day in the screening room and
half way through the all in the neck and he
stands up. He goes, what the fuck are you trying
to do? Bring down this network single handedly? And they
just knew that this We were eleven and out. But
but we made them off and it was a great experience.
(23:24):
Then I did an episode of a show another guy
who's dear, dear friend who passed and Christine you must
go through certainly through bed was Richard Lewis and he
was Yes. He was on a show called Anything but.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Love, Yes with Jamie Yes.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
I did a specially an episode that was especially lovely,
and it fed right into what Richard kind does. I
fall in love with Jamie Lee Curtis, and I'm just
this in turn working at the place, and I had
these puppy dog eyes and I had all these scenes
with her, and I would may say I made a splash.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
But I'm the producer.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
I did the producer or somebody who was there, a
woman named Marsha Bradman know of me. I then went
in and I auditioned for Carol Burnett and I did
a TV show with Carol for two and a half
years and that was great.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
That I loved. And then from there, oh yeah, then
I did Mad.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
About You, and then I yeah, but I see, I
was fired after the first year, or at least picked
up I'm mad about.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
You, but you weren't you on the run of this show.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
I tend to I've had I know this sounds crazy,
and I have had the best career in the world.
And one of the things I like about my career
is I don't with the exceptions like Spin City, which
was six years and yeah it was six years, I
don't do stuff that goes on for a long time.
(25:00):
I go bop the Bop, The Bop the Bop and Spinson.
I did the first year of Mad About You. We
started out the first thirteenth episodes just as guest stars.
So I go and I do the Music Man in
North Carolina at some at Summerstock. I did two shows
(25:21):
and while I'm there, I get this call, they're not
picking you up for the next season. I go.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
But I wouldn't have gone on.
Speaker 5 (25:28):
I would have tried their work and they didn't pick
me up, and that was terrible. And then I went
through a year of pilot seasons. Then I got Spin
City and it was okay, and then I went back
to Mad About You. During like well, I think like
the last year or so, I would do occasional guest
spots on the thing as as the character.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
But yeah, my wife stayed on. I did not.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
I was very upset with Paul and with a guy
named Danny Jacobson. It really upset me that they fired me.
But they fired me, m m.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
You know, it's always just a blow to the ego
when you find they're not going to be renewing, they're
not going to have you back. They're not going to
have you back this season. They're going another way with
the storyline or you know, they push in the blow.
But I think Richard, the the sort of through line
for you and you you brought it up just talking
about doing music.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Man.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
I mean from the time I've known you, like you said,
you would bop around, You do this, you do that,
you and and through all of that, you were always
doing theater, whether it was somber stock weather, it's community theater,
whether it's Broadway musicals. Please your love of theater.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You did. It's a comic can't but it's an opera.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Still, that's an opera. And and and voiceover work, I
mean you all is.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Not. Voice over work is the opposite of theater.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
In theater, you gotta work and work hard, and I
really like to work.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
And you have.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
To rehearse for three four weeks, sometimes six weeks with
the prayer that you're gonna do well. And you don't
make money at theater, you just don't. There's a finite
number of people can see it each night. There's a
finite pool of money.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
In TV. Who knows how much money they're.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
Charging for commercials, who knows how many people are gonna
see it. So it's the op and voiceover work is Hey,
I'm sewing up in my pajamas. I didn't even sour
or say let me kick this off in twenty minutes
and go home and collect money. It's the opposite of theater,
if it.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Isn't it nice to sort of have that little like that?
Speaker 5 (27:50):
Oh I love it and it's acting, yes, but you
must understand I love it, and I get to do
a lot of different stuff. I get to do big Mouth,
I get to do Mickey Mouse's a Funhouse. I mean
I go from sperm to do.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
My kids love big mouth. Yeah, well your.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
Kids love big mouth and little three year olds love
Mickey's Funhouse. Right, I'm not disparaging. Uh, voiceover voiceovers are
a gift.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
They're just a gift. Yeah, you do it. Nobody sees
your face. You get to do so many different types.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
It could be the best job in the world.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
It's the best job in the world. Oh, how about
those people who say I want to be an actor? Really?
What kind? Oh I want to do voiceovers? Who doesn't
want to do voice Sober.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Christine and about this all the time. Yeah, it's our
running joke.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
We cannot get voiceover work to save our lives, Richard,
you know somebody, you have to know somebody and cursed
with this voice.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Yes, like this, I ain't exactly going to play the
most villainous roles and movies or stuff like that, although
I have, but I have somewhat of a comic voice.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I mean, let's just remind our listeners. I mean, when
I hear your voice, I think of the movie inside out,
that character, that purple elephant or whatever.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
That was, Big Bog, I have Big Book, or as
I came out the door, what time and.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Oh my god, it's stop them.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
But I mean, you know a Bugs Life, the Cars Franchise,
Toy Story three. I mean, these are amazing movies.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Big Bomb is like I am the Jiminy Cricket for
that generation.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
I am very lucky. I'm blessed.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
I ride the coattails of many geniuses. Pete doctor mean
one John Mulaney ethanolthan code.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
I'm just lucky.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Can we stop right there, because I wanted to say,
we need to talk about a serious man. We just
Quinn had a class at school where they studied it
was called Bible. The Bible is literature, and they studied
the Book of Job and for his final assignment. They
could they could write a play or do a scene
or something, but or they could watch a serious man
(30:15):
and analyze this this sort of modern retelling of the
book of job Ben Ben had seen it before. I
hadn't seen it, and so the three of us watching
it with quick, I had never seen it. Can you
believe that?
Speaker 5 (30:29):
I think Ben saw it at at.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
You know who loved it? Your mother in law, she yes.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
She loved it. Love it and you in that film
are so brilliant and it is I mean, first of all,
it's just it is an extraordinary as Ben said as
we watched it, because Ben, as the director, can't even
he can't help, but he was like, every shot in
this movie is perfection, every shot, every back to a series. Man,
(31:12):
had you did you know the Coen brothers? Did you
had you worked with them before? What was the process?
Speaker 5 (31:17):
Some of this is very funny. Okay, let's relive that
time they came out with two scripts burn after reading
and a serious man. George Clooney my best friend, you're bestie.
He is godfather to my oldest daughter and best man
(31:40):
at my wedding, was working had done? Uh the low brother,
we're out there and He's told me that the brothers
liked me. I had never met them, so so I
knew that they were they were doing this movie. They
they said, oh, there's a really good part for Richard.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
The next George told me, I get these two scripts.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
One's Burned after reading and there is a two page
monologue by a lawyer, Kilda Swinton's lawyer in Burn. After reading,
I worked on that, worked on it and worked on it.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
And then there was a scene.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
Or I want to say, a lawyer in uh It
wasn't a lawyer Maybe it wasn't a rabbi either, it
was some part in Serious Man.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Maybe whatever it was.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
I worked and work the work, the work, and worked
and worked on uh burn after reading, and I went
in the office. I must have done it five times ago.
Give me another shot. Then I read for a Serious
Man and I didn't care. I didn't care about it.
I I in fact, they had just gotten off with
the air planned the day before and uh so, but
I didn't care about Serious Man. I didn't understand it
(32:52):
burn After reading, I did, so I do the reading
and they say this is this is the killer.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
I knew that they liked me, and they said very good.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
Would you go out and would you read for the
lead the part that Michael Stoolbard played. I said, listen,
I'm talking to joelan ethan code. This is I just
got off an airplane and stuff like that. I didn't study.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Let me go.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
Home and study the part and I'll come back in.
You're not You're doing this after you do Run after reading,
I'll come back in. They said, okay, good idea never
got called back. Oh no, I could have had the lead,
but I never read for it.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Oh that's a lesson.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
Right If they asked, you did the right thing, Why
would I want to do a half passed job.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Go home and work on it, study it, and.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Then come back you want me, I'll be happy to you.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
I didn't make a mistake.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
God just works in mysterious ways. I got a part
that I think I was much more suited for. Do
you think your audition for Burn after reading helped you
get the part you got? In a serious man, No,
my audition did. Yo.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Yo, you'll hear it.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
It's gonna They knew I could act, but I really
wanted the part in Burn. After reading, I go off
to do again. Damn Yankees, Yep.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
It was always sprinkling in some musical.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Theater just forgot.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
So I'm doing The Devil of Damn Yankees down at
some theater in Texas.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
I think an ol.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
Pass it could have been. I don't know where it was.
And I get the audition for Serious Man to do
Arthur and I talked and Ethan Joel wants to talk
to me before we tape, and the director.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
I thought there would be people who would be good.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
They were horrible actors, but there was one intern who
was pretty good, and I asked him would he worked
with me?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
And he did.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
And I spoke to Joel before and he said, nothing
is too big.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Nothing. He goes, just lay it out there, just.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
You know, when you're at the you're at the pool,
your life is bad, just let it all out.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
You've been waiting for that for years, since year ago.
Speaker 5 (35:20):
Yes, But the thing is I went okay, and he
goes and he told.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Me this story.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
He goes Bill Macy during Fargo. You know he had
a if you remember that, but he was just so
fed up. He banged on the roof of the car
and Bill Macy said that they're gonna laugh at me
bang on the roof of the car. Nobody's gonna believe that,
and he goes, trust me, they will. He goes, I
can't go back to New York and doing that. It's
one of the most memorable things in the world. When
(35:48):
he's up at at the top of the you know,
everything's wrong, and he starts beating the car and so
I'm like going, I can't I you know, I can't
even remember the word. And I'm at the pool just
so so sobbing. And I got the job. I got
the job over on tape and I hear and he's
(36:09):
so nice. Do you know Pat Moswell, I'm sure of.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Course he had him on the show, had him. We
had him on this a little bite.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Of one of the funnest human beings in the world.
He's the type of person that got twenty five hours
in a day.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
We all got twenty four. Patton gets twenty five.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
You're so nat He knows movies, he writes, he actually
does stand up. He's politically active. He's the best there is.
It's one of my favorite people. I know him. You know,
he's a friend. I can't say close closer, but I
adore him. He's taken parts away from me many a time. However,
(36:50):
this one I took from him.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
He thought he was going to get it, and I
took it away from him, and certainly that movement.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
I'm blessed with gifts that keep coming in my life,
and that was one of the gifts.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Uh serious, land is one of the gifts.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Very special inside out, one of the gifts.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
We should recreate the Kevin Bacon game.
Speaker 5 (37:18):
I am now, I truly am. But look how many
things I've done. I hope people it's just it's it's silly.
It's just silly.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
And I love too that when you say, look at
how many things I've done. Ella just showed first of all, Ellison,
she ran into you recently and that you're doing Bye
by Bertie at the Kennedy Center. So that was my
I didn't even have to research that, which is so exciting.
But she showed me a clip of something that you
did Girls.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Five EVA with is that hilarious?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
With Sarah burrellis I was peeing in my pants and
the tissues in your thing that your self de bricading
take on yourself was brilliant.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
That is so funny. They wrote it, they wrote it.
They had some things in there that I said, yes,
not say that.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
Let's say this, but that brilliant, brilliant woman Meredith Scardino. Yep,
uh brilliant. She rose five ever right on Netflix. Yeah,
someone told me yesterday it's the funniest show.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
It's a great show.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
It was the funniest show's ever made.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
Yeah, but but they well that whole Robert Carlock, Tina say, uh,
Jeff Richmond Factory, They're they're great.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Are you going to continue on that?
Speaker 3 (38:40):
You know what, It's literally a three minute cameo.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
It's so good, David, David, you got to look it up.
You will die. I texted you was it last summer
at the Tribeca Film Festival, because I had I had
done a short that was in this evening of shorts
(39:05):
and there you pop up. You were talking about that
you're in so many things and you jump around. Yes,
it was so good. It was such a good short.
But here I am thinking, like, how terrific? Like you,
I feel it at this stage in my life, in
(39:26):
my career, in my fifties now that it's sort of
like it's ego free when it comes to work. It's
sort of like if a friend or or if it's
a short film which is for for no money. It's
sort of like I'm paying to do it because I
have to transport myself there and pay for the meal
all over. It doesn't matter. It's like the joy and
(39:49):
the luxury too, Like I think there's That's the other
thing I could say is like I have the luxury
being able to do jobs like that, but but we do.
We do to have no ego about any of it.
I feel the joy, like you said, you love it,
and I just feel that in every single thing you
do that you just love to work. And it's infectious.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
I don't know how infectious it is. It's it's not well.
You know, if if if a young actor sise, you.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Know, what do I do? The first thing I say
is don't do it. That's the first thing.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
But if they say, I say, do plays become good?
You have to become good, then do everything.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
You know. Here's something funny. I'm doing a show.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
One day tomorrow, in three days next week, a show
called Evil Okay. It's on Paramount Plus. The people created
are great, great people, great creative minds, the Kings and
why not. It's a guest spot. It's two episodes. It's
not that much money.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
And.
Speaker 5 (40:59):
I play a dun and in the first episode, all
I'm doing is say and well, the defense is the defense,
you know, sit down, please actually over well just stuff
like that, and there's no dramatic arc. And then I'm
reading the second episode same thing there, would you would
would you like to respond? There's defense, just the defense,
(41:19):
rest sit like that.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It's judge talk, judge talk.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
And then I have a one and a half page
scene that is so and I'm going, why why did
they hire me? And then I have a one page scene,
one and a half pages.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
They're so good, it's so good.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Now I didn't take it because of that, but that
is when I read the script, I said, oh, that's
why they want me, so I get to do that.
And then I thought they're paying me not a lot
of money at all, But who am I think back
to when you're a young actor and there people around
(42:00):
today going, I kill quill for two episodes on a
show and the money is not in hundreds, it's in thousands.
It's not that many, but it's in thousands what I
and I get to go to work rather than a
Wednesday where I'm sitting at home all day.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
You know, yes, of course I want to do that.
It's what I do. This is what I do.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
It's what I do.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
It's it's what I do. It's the love of the work,
and also love it well.
Speaker 5 (42:38):
There is no no better place and you'll both know this,
there's no better place to be than.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
On set, right, but also remembering where you came from
and that you know, a top of show a few
thousand dollars is not what it's about.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
It's not I remember the first time I turned something down,
and I was pristitious person, and I said, I'm never
going to work again. I at all.
Speaker 5 (43:06):
I jin all, Yeah, what kind of hoopris do I
have that I'm turning down work?
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Are you? Are you kidding me? Who am I to
turn down work? Now?
Speaker 5 (43:17):
Chris Steve, your husband looks at twenty scripts a week.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Has to turn this stuff down? I don't. I get
to do everything.
Speaker 5 (43:27):
Can my agent and manager mix and match and weave
do Okay, I would shoot this Tuesday. Then I have
to fly to Seattle to work Friday, Monday and Tuesday
and then come back and do something.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
But let them do that, right, let them sort of weave.
Speaker 5 (43:44):
It, yes, right, But when BEN take something that's a
three month commitment to do.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
So he has to turn stuff down.
Speaker 5 (43:53):
I don't right, I don't have to and I don't
want to do what Ben does. Ben has to be too,
Ben has to work too hard. Ben has to score
a movie where.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Ben's listening to this. He'll be listening to this right now.
He will be. He listens to every episode and he's
going to be in a hunting in agreement with you.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Well, but he loves it too though.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
He loves what he does.
Speaker 5 (44:21):
But but he has economic concerns too, because if his
movie fails, he doesn't get the next great script. It
doesn't matter what I do. People will say, Oh, Ben
Stiller has a new movie. I'm gonna go see a
new Ben Stiller movie. Oh I saw the new Ben's
Stiller movie. It's dreadful. You know what, what what are
(44:44):
you gonna do? They go, I went and saw this
movie you always in. It was Richard Kind. Movie was terrible.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
He was funny. It doesn't matter. He's eighteen dollars. Let
me see the Richard Kind vehicle.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
No, there is a lot of freedom and being one
of the great character actors there really is.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
There is a tremendous my shoulders and my neck do
not have the tension.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
The bestseller.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
You're listening, then you hear that the tension.
Speaker 5 (45:16):
But also but he takes something. An industry opens up
because dry cleaners have to get work, hotels will get work,
crews will get work, all sorts of people, caterers. I'm
just going, you know, the different I show up. It's
a different, it's a different. Yeah, and I love it.
(45:39):
And by the way, may I say, because you said
I'm in my fifties, I don't know how you look
so good. And I've seen you a person and I
now see you on on screen.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Oh, Richard, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Make me the question, is your mom still with us?
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Yes, Joan, Yes? No, Joan Joan Taylor. You know that
I'm Christine Joan Taylor and she's the jo She was.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Very lovely to me at those early days.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yes, we've been in each other's lives for a long time,
and you talked about there's no better place than being
on the set, and it made me just think of
going back, kind of coming full circle to David. It
was us me becoming friendly with David and Andrew Hill
Newman on that set, like just guest stars bonding, you know,
and then leading to meeting you like on a lunch break,
(46:39):
and it like that's the joy. I feel like there's
there's all these yea condition.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
We all had our groups, you know, like we had
the White Squall cast on a group of my friends.
Were you guys at Matthew.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Perry with Matthew Modine.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
No, it was Jeff Bridges and a whole group of
young guys that I came up with.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
But yeah, a lot a lot of people do, especially now.
Speaker 5 (47:06):
I did Summer Stop, and I said, I became so close.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
I mean, you're you're sleeping with these people.
Speaker 5 (47:13):
You you say I'm going to stay so close, and
you do, and then it dissipates and then you don't.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
But I'm still friends with my uh Spin City people.
Speaker 5 (47:23):
I know. I have one of the guys on Spin City.
He was in the Vietnam hotel. I can't remember what
it was, but like Stephen Webber and Although and Don Hiedo,
they all remained friends.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
You have your white squad people.
Speaker 5 (47:38):
No, you must say you have for your people you
remember and I'll tell you something else. Like Irving Berlin said,
there's no people like show people.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, Oh, Richard, thank you. We've taken up a full
hour and this went by in a flash.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
Well now what do I do? Just go back and
lie in bed in my underwear.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Well, now you're dressed. You're dressed, and you've got your
team made.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
No, why don't you go singing in the rain practice
your musical skills.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
That's actually a bad idea.
Speaker 5 (48:11):
It's on the lamp post, you know when you swing
around a lot of COVID and Germans.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Too old for that stuff.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
Yeah, they haven't washed it out.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
It was so nice to meet you, Richard. A pleasure
to meet.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
This was awesome Richard. I love you. I love your family.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
I love to your whole family.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Well you too, you too? Everyone?
Speaker 3 (48:36):
All righty, I love you guys. Yeah, I love.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Thank you Richard.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
I mean, really, what a sweetheart of a guy.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
And what a force right Like it's just Richard starts
And I can't tell you, David like knowing him for
the thirty plus years that I've known him, and then
our daughters were in the same class together at school
and graduated high school together, and so I would see
him at all these parent events as well.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Didn't you know him from out your La days.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
No, we met when I was in when I was
twenty two, right.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
I mean yeah, when you were doing Blossom. But then yes,
that whole friend, the whole circle.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yes, I mean we were like Richard was always out
of town, like he's talked about like doing tours of musicals,
like that's he just but every time. And he is
such an Upper west Side staple here in New York City,
like you'll just see him and he has a like
I was going to bring it up to him, but
I didn't want to make myself conscious. He has this
(49:36):
great purple golf sweater that you can spot like a
mile away on the Upper West Side.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
It's like like his character big Body exactly.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
It's a purple v neck and he would wear it
to like the parent things at school. I think it's
a golf sweater that he got from some golf club.
But I will see that purple sweater like he where
he's like, ah, I'm just parking the car and I
run into him all the time, and he's just like home,
he's just family.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
He's seriously it's like it's play on words. His last
name is kind. But he really does seem like the
sweetest guy, Yeah, and hang.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Out with them.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
And has no problem. I mean he he. What I
love about him too, is he he gives himself all
the credit in the world and also is the most
self deprecating person in the world, you know what I mean,
Like he's all of it. He he knows he's worked hard,
he knows he's gotten better over the.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Years, and which I loved him saying that, I know,
I'm a kind I'm a generous person. Say that about yourself.
That's like so important.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Yes, yes, anyway, that was so much fun, Yes, awesome,
and that's going to do it for us. But come
back next week. We got another fun one.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Have a great week.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah, good ye, have a great week, and thank you
for listening.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Thanks for listening. Make sure to subscribe and give us
five stars.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Please follow us on Instagram at Hey dude. The nineties
called See you next time.
Hey Dude the nineties called with Christine Taylor and David Lasher,
Hey Everybody, Welcome back to Hey Dude. The nineties called
I am your host, Christine, and.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm your other host, David.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
We're hosts of Hey Doe the nineties called podcast Nice
to See Nice to see you too. It is a
miserable day in New York. I've heard blustery, windy, cold rain,
like not the pretty, like refreshing spring rain. It is
like things are blowing all over it is calling.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
It an atmospheric river like they do in no.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I think that that's that's that's saved for La. Yeah,
it's just cold city rain here. But how have things
been for you?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, I guess the highlight of my weekend was my
daughter Hannah was home for spring break. She had gone
to Miami and came home to spend four or five
days with us. So we just had such a nice time,
played some tennis, and we had dinners and just really
caught up with her, which is like you know when
your kid goes off to college, like every day you
(01:14):
get to spend with them, Like, oh, you want to
play tennis with me, I'm there, I'm showing up, tell
me more exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I want to hear everything. Oh and our guest is
here in the waiting room, and it is the one
and only Richard kind lets in, fine him.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
In, all right, the greatest Richard. You know, it's really
this is the highlight of my day ours too, that
this is.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
This is David Lasher, my my podcast co host. Nice,
My god, Richard. I feel like I know you.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
You're one of those actors and I'm sure you get
this all the time that people feel like they've known
you their whole life. I mean, and your voice as well.
It's just so recognizable. It's scary.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It is scary.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
I I'm sorry, it's it's yes. Even my wife and
children are leaving me. They just go, will not take
this voice anymore?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Awful?
Speaker 5 (02:11):
It's awful. Now, Yes, I know, I've been around. And
when you run it to people who think that they
know you and whether they went to school with you
or you're going to bed and then they go oh yeah,
yeah yeah, and they go, oh are you acting anymore?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Oh god, they really are out of touch. I feel
like you have to be. And obviously I have known
you for thirty plus years. I mean, you were one
of the first people. You were one of the first
people I met when I moved to Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Crazy and David.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
It was, in fact, to tie this all together, I
met Richard when I when David Pressman, who then became
my roommate, and I were doing an episode of Blossom.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Is that how you met David.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
That's how I met David Pressman and Andrew Hill Newman.
The three of us were guest stars on an episode
of Blossom, which this David Lasher starred on. And Richard
you came over to the dressing room you were shooting.
Was it Herman's head?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
No, the city?
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Was it? What?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It was at Sunset Gower Studios in the early nineties.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I must have. It must have been a guest thing.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, yeah, and I had been.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I did because I.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Met David Pressman, because David Pressman, because Matt Perry was
guesting on Empty Nest with me, and also in this game.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That's the connection. Because Paul Waite and Tony Thomas produced Blossom,
they also produced Empty Nest. That was probably I.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Know that that's okay, But that's my connection to you.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Is that mar eighties was that was that was Empty Nest? Eighties,
late eighties.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I don't know if they were still doing in the nineties.
I'm sorry. I thought maybe that was the connection.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
No, but I mean that's how I met David.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
Was through Matt, who was guesting that day, and I
talked them to play poker in my dressing room.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Oh God, So you're the one responsible for all of
all of the gambling.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
I really I am, and I'm very, very disheartened by
how the gambling got out.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Of hand, because it really got out of hand.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
I mean, you got people playing, you lose thousands of
dollars in an evening.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Well, yes, yes, I think that's what started to happen
with a lot. I mean I know for a fact
because my brother got into some of those games and
he was working as a PA. He was not a
working actor, and he would go to these poker games.
That's what Brian and Matt Levin were roommates, and they
were going to these poker games as if they were
(04:54):
like employed actors. Losing money. It was You're right, it
did get out of hand.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
I'll tell you the worst thing because in poker you
have to be cut through, right, I mean, you know
you've got to.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
It's it's it's an awful thing. I mean, you really
have to lie.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
You know, you don't have a good hand when you
have a great hands, it's underhandedness. And I look at
those guys, and I was making a decent livan.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I never made the living that they all ended up making.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
But I would sometimes fold or I wouldn't bet because
I didn't want them to get hurt.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
That's the opposite of poker.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I was going to say, a poker player with a
heart is a crappy poker player.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
You know, I have.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
I have a very very silly, stupid game here in
New York or where we play.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
It's a silly, silly game.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
Many of the players are very well known, and some
of the players or theater people who don't make the
kind of money that we're lucky enough to be making.
And I or When's a musician and an actor, and
it just it kills me to take.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
From you throw the games because you feel bad for
the other players. That is a beauty. It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
It is, I know, and I I am proud of it,
and I'm disgusted by it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, I must they You're the worst overa player alive.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I was gonna say, Richard, I feel like you are
you know we I have known you for a million
years and you have always been within our friend group
the most, the person who everyone does the most impressions of.
And literally I told when I was texting you about
(06:48):
coming on the show. We had Bonnie Hunt on a
few weeks ago. She incredible. I mean, it's my it's
my life's mission to be her best friend. I just
don't live in la and I want to spend more
time with her because I think she's incredible. But she
gave you so much credit about at the very beginning,
(07:10):
you loaning her some money to go off and take
a chance at something. And she did this great impression
of you of how how because she said, let me
pay you that a little bit.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
It's okay, let's start with this.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
I left a lot of people money, and in the
day it was a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
It wasn't that much, and it wasn't such a big deal.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
They were going to pay it back, and what does
it matter if it's in the bank or if it's
helping somebody out.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
And it really wasn't that much at the time.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
It seems like that much, but I didn't but I
have there's a list of people who I gave the money,
and uh, and money just wants to be like Carol Burnett.
Have somebody who gave the money and then they went
off to New York and that.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Became a stuff.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
I didn't do that much now her impression of everybody
does an impression of me.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
I can't do it. Impression of me.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I can't do a richer kind. I can't do it.
I can't do it.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Yeah, most people can. There are only a few people
who do a really good impression of me. But do
you know guy named Tom Virtue? Would you know that name?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
That's a familiar name.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
But he was a father on Even Stevens. He's an actor,
wonderful actor. Doesn't work as much as I'd like him
do or he'd like to, but he does. I went
to college with him. He does such a good impression.
He knows what I'm going to say. It's not just
that he does an impression of me. It sounds like me.
(08:42):
He does an impression of what I would say. And
the only way and I've said this on another podcast,
the only impression that I could do with me, and
it's easy, is one time we were at a poker
game and they said, can you And we're going back
to the nineties, since dude, this is the nineties.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
The reference in the nineties.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
Is someone said, Richard, you're going to be playing this
week and I said, no, I'm doing a commission.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
But this is how it sad. No dead waiting a
COMMISSI that's good.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
That's a good Richard kind impression that Donnie Hunt said,
what did she say? I don't want it in installments.
I wanted in one loveth sum who said that that was.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
What Bonnie said, is the way you said to repay
her it? Not you do want installments just when.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
She was ready, because these people felt guilty that they
had borrowed. But there's no reason to feel guilty. But
the hell, it's it's money. You're my friend. So she said,
I'll pay you back one hundred dollars a week ago. No, no, no,
I don't want that. First of all, I lose track,
So don't think it was so uh, you know, gracious
(09:53):
on me, but I would lose track.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And I go, no, when you have enough money, you
pay me back. I don't want it. Well, I don't
need to. What do I need to hundred.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Dollars a week, and I need She turned it into
a very funny impression.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Though, well, body hunt is the greatest.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I agree.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
And you say you want to be her best friend.
For a while, I was.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
Her best friend or one of her best friends. I
was the lucky one. She lived in my apartment while
I was up doing.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
What was I was? I?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
I think I was up in Vancouver doing a show,
and I said, stay in my apartment. Excuse you know,
can I tell you something right now? Isn't the honest
to God's truth. I know I'm a nice man. I
know I'm very philanthropic and blah blah blah. But I
was in La recently because I wanted to get out
(10:53):
of the East Coast and get away from the snow.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Kids are out of school, so I'll go there.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
I had three people living in my apartment rent free,
because one is going through a divorce, one was heavily
saddled by the strike and really didn't have much money,
and the other was a young woman who's making her
way in New York. So they were living in the
bedrooms in this apartment in New York.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
You know what, Richard, Not everybody is like that. And
I just want to say at when I look at
your career, it's remarkable that you have worked for I
don't know, thirty years consistently. But you know, what you
get back from the world, what you put out into
the universe, and I feel like you deserve everything that
you've achieved.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
I guess so. But nice people deserve nice things. I
think I'm a nice person. We don't always get it,
but yeah, I think nice people deserve nice things.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
When it comes back to you.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
And I think good people deserve to go to jail
because of the crimes they've committed.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
One times.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Let's move into the twenty twenties.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
No, No, because I what I've never heard. We have
to go backwards. We have to go like before pre nineties,
because I just want to hear and you can. I'm
sure you've told it a million times. But the brief
version or whatever version you want to tell of how
the hell you got into this industry? Was this something
from like from childhood, you were a performer, you were
(12:29):
on stage.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
I've told it before.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
Having been raised near Trent, New Jersey, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,
I would take the train into New York and I
loved Broadway.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
My grandparents lived here.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
They taught me when I got to the age to
go into New York City alone. I would come and
I would see a matinee and an evening show and
I'd go home. This is all by myself, actually with
Brian Ayani, who was a.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Really good friend. Like to say things. So I always
wanted to be an actor.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
But there are kids who want to be rock stars,
the kids who want to play center field for the Yankees.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
It doesn't happen. You talk about it, but you don't
do it.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, it's not real. It's not a reality.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
It's you know, when you're four years old, you want
to be a fire but then you want to be
an astronaut. Then you want to be a ball player,
then you want to be a rock star, and then
you go and you become an accountant.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
But I always wanted it.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
And my Kad's best friend when I was supposed to
go to law school. In the spring before I went
to law school, he said, go try acting because when
you're forty, you're going to resent your wife and your
kids because you have to keep working and make money
and you never got a shot, and they're keeping you
from it, so try it now and I was good.
(13:55):
I wasn't as good then as I am now. I
never should had the career because in retrospect I sucked.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I really was not good. But I was big and
I was loud, and I made an impression. But I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
You were You were unique, You were right?
Speaker 5 (14:13):
You could you just gonna go into soabus with this space.
It's different. It said no, nobody should, uh, And I
just tried it for one year. One year turned into
two with the four and ultimately I it took twenty years.
I became better. I it took ten years. When I
was in Second City. I started getting a sense of
(14:35):
myself and I was employed every night.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Wait, you trained at Second City.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
I didn't just train. I was on stage.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So that's where you met Bonnie.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yes, we were.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
We were on stage. We were I had been for
about two and a half years. Bonnie will tell you.
She because she's so kind, she goes I would come
to see you. She come to see Second City. But
she came and she studied me. As I've heard her
say that.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
And you're saying you weren't very good, I mean keeping
up and making it a Second City meant you were sharp,
you were quick, you were funny.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
Right for a year and a half, I was dreadful.
You must understand, and I never got great, but I
got very good. What I am is what happened was
with Tom Virtue. We were living as roommates in New
(15:29):
York and there was a group called you probably know it,
the Practical Theater Company every year Practical Theater. Yeah, it
was started by Julia Louis Dreyfus, Brad Hall, her husband
Brad Hall, Gary Kroger, and a guy named Paul Barross
who and they were all snatched up to.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Go to Saturday Night Lant.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
They were improvising in Chicago, right next to Second City,
and they said, we're all coming to New York. I
used to party with them. Why don't you go to
New York or to Chicago and do a show for
our theater company. We did Second City saw me there
and said would you come and be in Second City?
And I didn't have to go through any of the
(16:12):
may and any and through the touring company. I didn't
have to take classes. They just picked me up. Now,
trust me. There were people who made dartboards with my
face on it because they were paying their dues, and
here I just goes straight onto stage. My training was
(16:32):
in front of an audience with all these people, and
I was not good.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
What I could do was listen.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Megan Fay, who was there, said just look in my
eyes and just listen, and that is what I did.
And I'm a pretty good reactor as far as being
funny and saying funny lines.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
All right, I could be funny.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
I can say witty things, but not with the alacrity
that these people could do. I mean, some of these
people were tremendously witty and funny and heads and tails
funnier than me. But I'm a better actor than they are,
and I am a better reactor, and my sense of
reacting could take a scene into places where just funny
(17:20):
people might not.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Does that makes sense, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you really to
have both with sort of the magic the special Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
Trust me, there are people who are hilariously funny and
no story and those people are geniuses.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I was not.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
I was good, and I got better, but I was
never great. And then from there, you know, you get it.
You're on stage for four and a half years every night,
performing improvising, having a sense of confidence on stage, even the.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Worst of us can get better. And I got better.
And then I went to LA and I got work.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
And even during that work, I got better because I
don't know the camera listen to me, I'm too loud,
camera is very small, and I'm screaming like this. You
know what, because I'm on stage, I'm still performing. So
I ended up getting better over the years.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And yeah, did you have a lot of directors tell
you to bring it down?
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Bring it down? Yes?
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Well, the funniest thing you know, Christina knows Craig Vierco
who once said that the astronauts were up in space
and they saw two things, the Great Wall of China
and every acting choice Richard Kind ever made.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
That's good, That's what it is. But I got smaller.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
And I go out a camera and playing my prophone
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
But the sitcom work, the sitcom work is not so
far from a second City type.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
You correct, well, now, okay, we'll be more specific, especially
being in the nineties, for camera, sitcom in front of
an audience is very theatrical, right, I've said this before.
I got to work with two legends, Michael Fox and
Michael J. Fox and Carol Burnette.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Carol Burnette can play the camera and play the audience
at the same time.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
She's unbelievable. She's not the most subtle woman in the world.
Which she's a single camera she knows how to do it,
but when she's in front of an audience, she plays
the camera and plays the audience. Michael Fox only plays
the camera, but he needs the audience for timing. He
(19:51):
needs to play them and ride those laughs, and he's
a master of it.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Was Spin City, your first big record was it Mad
About You? Which came first?
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Mad Abact you came first? Actually I was loved.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
I came to town in October and by the end
of the month I had a series that was a
drama because coming out of Second City, I didn't want
people would know, oh, your Second City, Oh you're funny.
I didn't want people to know that it was just funny.
So I got into a very gruesome one hour TV
(20:35):
show called unsub what unsuck. I call it un somewhat
unsuck unsuck. It the was the FBI term un sub
unknown Subject. It was a cop show where we chased
serial killers. We were you know Peter Roth is yeah.
(20:58):
Peter Roth was head of Cattell at the time. Yep,
and he said, and he's right, he goes, rich we
were the first. We were the first procedural. We were
about in nineteen eighty nine maybe yeah, around that time,
and that was the first run. And m m at
Walsh who just said he was in the show with
(21:21):
me and he became a very dear friend through that.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, that was.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
It was quite it was. It wasn't a good show, No,
it was a show. But we were the first procedural.
And every time I see Peter Roth, Peter Roth is
known for hugging people, and.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
He hugs me and he goes, but you are the first,
and we were.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Then you got a show one month into coming to
LA on the air.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I mean unbelievable, Like.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
This doesn't happen, Richard, that doesn't happen.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
Okay, Well here's the thing. Okay, here's me, here's the reader.
Here's Stephen Cannell. So I'm looking at the re at
the Castigate, and right behind is Stephen Cannell, and I'm
reading this thing, and behind I see Stephen Cantighe the
(22:12):
best audition in the world. And then I find out
Stephen Cannell.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Just loves his words and he just does well.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
My god, no, he just loved he loves. He does
not for everyone.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
He loves hearing his words. So he was just but
but yes, I got I got the person. Then I
that's canceled after three well you know after well after
the first pilot episode.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I'll tell you a little thing.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
That is the night before our uh before Candle showed
Brandon Tartakov the pilot, there was a very famous incident
where Harado Rivera did a show on Witchcraft and all
the reviews were at the low point of TV, this
(23:01):
is how much lower can TV get. He then sees
the show the next day in the screening room and
half way through the all in the neck and he
stands up. He goes, what the fuck are you trying
to do? Bring down this network single handedly? And they
just knew that this We were eleven and out. But
but we made them off and it was a great experience.
(23:24):
Then I did an episode of a show another guy
who's dear, dear friend who passed and Christine you must
go through certainly through bed was Richard Lewis and he
was Yes. He was on a show called Anything but.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Love, Yes with Jamie Yes.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
I did a specially an episode that was especially lovely,
and it fed right into what Richard kind does. I
fall in love with Jamie Lee Curtis, and I'm just
this in turn working at the place, and I had
these puppy dog eyes and I had all these scenes
with her, and I would may say I made a splash.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
But I'm the producer.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
I did the producer or somebody who was there, a
woman named Marsha Bradman know of me. I then went
in and I auditioned for Carol Burnett and I did
a TV show with Carol for two and a half
years and that was great.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
That I loved. And then from there, oh yeah, then
I did Mad.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
About You, and then I yeah, but I see, I
was fired after the first year, or at least picked
up I'm mad about.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
You, but you weren't you on the run of this show.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
I tend to I've had I know this sounds crazy,
and I have had the best career in the world.
And one of the things I like about my career
is I don't with the exceptions like Spin City, which
was six years and yeah it was six years, I
don't do stuff that goes on for a long time.
(25:00):
I go bop the Bop, The Bop the Bop and Spinson.
I did the first year of Mad About You. We
started out the first thirteenth episodes just as guest stars.
So I go and I do the Music Man in
North Carolina at some at Summerstock. I did two shows
(25:21):
and while I'm there, I get this call, they're not
picking you up for the next season. I go.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
But I wouldn't have gone on.
Speaker 5 (25:28):
I would have tried their work and they didn't pick
me up, and that was terrible. And then I went
through a year of pilot seasons. Then I got Spin
City and it was okay, and then I went back
to Mad About You. During like well, I think like
the last year or so, I would do occasional guest
spots on the thing as as the character.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
But yeah, my wife stayed on. I did not.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
I was very upset with Paul and with a guy
named Danny Jacobson. It really upset me that they fired me.
But they fired me, m m.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
You know, it's always just a blow to the ego
when you find they're not going to be renewing, they're
not going to have you back. They're not going to
have you back this season. They're going another way with
the storyline or you know, they push in the blow.
But I think Richard, the the sort of through line
for you and you you brought it up just talking
about doing music.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Man.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
I mean from the time I've known you, like you said,
you would bop around, You do this, you do that,
you and and through all of that, you were always
doing theater, whether it was somber stock weather, it's community theater,
whether it's Broadway musicals. Please your love of theater.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You did. It's a comic can't but it's an opera.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Still, that's an opera. And and and voiceover work, I
mean you all is.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Not. Voice over work is the opposite of theater.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
In theater, you gotta work and work hard, and I
really like to work.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
And you have.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
To rehearse for three four weeks, sometimes six weeks with
the prayer that you're gonna do well. And you don't
make money at theater, you just don't. There's a finite
number of people can see it each night. There's a
finite pool of money.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
In TV. Who knows how much money they're.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
Charging for commercials, who knows how many people are gonna
see it. So it's the op and voiceover work is Hey,
I'm sewing up in my pajamas. I didn't even sour
or say let me kick this off in twenty minutes
and go home and collect money. It's the opposite of theater,
if it.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Isn't it nice to sort of have that little like that?
Speaker 5 (27:50):
Oh I love it and it's acting, yes, but you
must understand I love it, and I get to do
a lot of different stuff. I get to do big Mouth,
I get to do Mickey Mouse's a Funhouse. I mean
I go from sperm to do.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
My kids love big mouth. Yeah, well your.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
Kids love big mouth and little three year olds love
Mickey's Funhouse. Right, I'm not disparaging. Uh, voiceover voiceovers are
a gift.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
They're just a gift. Yeah, you do it. Nobody sees
your face. You get to do so many different types.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
It could be the best job in the world.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
It's the best job in the world. Oh, how about
those people who say I want to be an actor? Really?
What kind? Oh I want to do voiceovers? Who doesn't
want to do voice Sober.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Christine and about this all the time. Yeah, it's our
running joke.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
We cannot get voiceover work to save our lives, Richard,
you know somebody, you have to know somebody and cursed
with this voice.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Yes, like this, I ain't exactly going to play the
most villainous roles and movies or stuff like that, although
I have, but I have somewhat of a comic voice.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I mean, let's just remind our listeners. I mean, when
I hear your voice, I think of the movie inside out,
that character, that purple elephant or whatever.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
That was, Big Bog, I have Big Book, or as
I came out the door, what time and.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Oh my god, it's stop them.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
But I mean, you know a Bugs Life, the Cars Franchise,
Toy Story three. I mean, these are amazing movies.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Big Bomb is like I am the Jiminy Cricket for
that generation.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
I am very lucky. I'm blessed.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
I ride the coattails of many geniuses. Pete doctor mean
one John Mulaney ethanolthan code.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
I'm just lucky.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Can we stop right there, because I wanted to say,
we need to talk about a serious man. We just
Quinn had a class at school where they studied it
was called Bible. The Bible is literature, and they studied
the Book of Job and for his final assignment. They
could they could write a play or do a scene
or something, but or they could watch a serious man
(30:15):
and analyze this this sort of modern retelling of the
book of job Ben Ben had seen it before. I
hadn't seen it, and so the three of us watching
it with quick, I had never seen it. Can you
believe that?
Speaker 5 (30:29):
I think Ben saw it at at.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
You know who loved it? Your mother in law, she yes.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
She loved it. Love it and you in that film
are so brilliant and it is I mean, first of all,
it's just it is an extraordinary as Ben said as
we watched it, because Ben, as the director, can't even
he can't help, but he was like, every shot in
this movie is perfection, every shot, every back to a series. Man,
(31:12):
had you did you know the Coen brothers? Did you
had you worked with them before? What was the process?
Speaker 5 (31:17):
Some of this is very funny. Okay, let's relive that
time they came out with two scripts burn after reading
and a serious man. George Clooney my best friend, you're bestie.
He is godfather to my oldest daughter and best man
(31:40):
at my wedding, was working had done? Uh the low brother,
we're out there and He's told me that the brothers
liked me. I had never met them, so so I
knew that they were they were doing this movie. They
they said, oh, there's a really good part for Richard.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
The next George told me, I get these two scripts.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
One's Burned after reading and there is a two page
monologue by a lawyer, Kilda Swinton's lawyer in Burn. After reading,
I worked on that, worked on it and worked on it.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
And then there was a scene.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
Or I want to say, a lawyer in uh It
wasn't a lawyer Maybe it wasn't a rabbi either, it
was some part in Serious Man.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Maybe whatever it was.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
I worked and work the work, the work, and worked
and worked on uh burn after reading, and I went
in the office. I must have done it five times ago.
Give me another shot. Then I read for a Serious
Man and I didn't care. I didn't care about it.
I I in fact, they had just gotten off with
the air planned the day before and uh so, but
I didn't care about Serious Man. I didn't understand it
(32:52):
burn After reading, I did, so I do the reading
and they say this is this is the killer.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
I knew that they liked me, and they said very good.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
Would you go out and would you read for the
lead the part that Michael Stoolbard played. I said, listen,
I'm talking to joelan ethan code. This is I just
got off an airplane and stuff like that. I didn't study.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Let me go.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
Home and study the part and I'll come back in.
You're not You're doing this after you do Run after reading,
I'll come back in. They said, okay, good idea never
got called back. Oh no, I could have had the lead,
but I never read for it.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Oh that's a lesson.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
Right If they asked, you did the right thing, Why
would I want to do a half passed job.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Go home and work on it, study it, and.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Then come back you want me, I'll be happy to you.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
I didn't make a mistake.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
God just works in mysterious ways. I got a part
that I think I was much more suited for. Do
you think your audition for Burn after reading helped you
get the part you got? In a serious man, No,
my audition did. Yo.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Yo, you'll hear it.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
It's gonna They knew I could act, but I really
wanted the part in Burn. After reading, I go off
to do again. Damn Yankees, Yep.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
It was always sprinkling in some musical.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Theater just forgot.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
So I'm doing The Devil of Damn Yankees down at
some theater in Texas.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
I think an ol.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
Pass it could have been. I don't know where it was.
And I get the audition for Serious Man to do
Arthur and I talked and Ethan Joel wants to talk
to me before we tape, and the director.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
I thought there would be people who would be good.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
They were horrible actors, but there was one intern who
was pretty good, and I asked him would he worked
with me?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
And he did.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
And I spoke to Joel before and he said, nothing
is too big.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Nothing. He goes, just lay it out there, just.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
You know, when you're at the you're at the pool,
your life is bad, just let it all out.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
You've been waiting for that for years, since year ago.
Speaker 5 (35:20):
Yes, But the thing is I went okay, and he
goes and he told.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Me this story.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
He goes Bill Macy during Fargo. You know he had
a if you remember that, but he was just so
fed up. He banged on the roof of the car
and Bill Macy said that they're gonna laugh at me
bang on the roof of the car. Nobody's gonna believe that,
and he goes, trust me, they will. He goes, I
can't go back to New York and doing that. It's
one of the most memorable things in the world. When
(35:48):
he's up at at the top of the you know,
everything's wrong, and he starts beating the car and so
I'm like going, I can't I you know, I can't
even remember the word. And I'm at the pool just
so so sobbing. And I got the job. I got
the job over on tape and I hear and he's
(36:09):
so nice. Do you know Pat Moswell, I'm sure of.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Course he had him on the show, had him. We
had him on this a little bite.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Of one of the funnest human beings in the world.
He's the type of person that got twenty five hours
in a day.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
We all got twenty four. Patton gets twenty five.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
You're so nat He knows movies, he writes, he actually
does stand up. He's politically active. He's the best there is.
It's one of my favorite people. I know him. You know,
he's a friend. I can't say close closer, but I
adore him. He's taken parts away from me many a time. However,
(36:50):
this one I took from him.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
He thought he was going to get it, and I
took it away from him, and certainly that movement.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
I'm blessed with gifts that keep coming in my life,
and that was one of the gifts.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Uh serious, land is one of the gifts.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Very special inside out, one of the gifts.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
We should recreate the Kevin Bacon game.
Speaker 5 (37:18):
I am now, I truly am. But look how many
things I've done. I hope people it's just it's it's silly.
It's just silly.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
And I love too that when you say, look at
how many things I've done. Ella just showed first of all, Ellison,
she ran into you recently and that you're doing Bye
by Bertie at the Kennedy Center. So that was my
I didn't even have to research that, which is so exciting.
But she showed me a clip of something that you
did Girls.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Five EVA with is that hilarious?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
With Sarah burrellis I was peeing in my pants and
the tissues in your thing that your self de bricading
take on yourself was brilliant.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
That is so funny. They wrote it, they wrote it.
They had some things in there that I said, yes,
not say that.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
Let's say this, but that brilliant, brilliant woman Meredith Scardino. Yep,
uh brilliant. She rose five ever right on Netflix. Yeah,
someone told me yesterday it's the funniest show.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
It's a great show.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
It was the funniest show's ever made.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
Yeah, but but they well that whole Robert Carlock, Tina say, uh,
Jeff Richmond Factory, They're they're great.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Are you going to continue on that?
Speaker 3 (38:40):
You know what, It's literally a three minute cameo.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
It's so good, David, David, you got to look it up.
You will die. I texted you was it last summer
at the Tribeca Film Festival, because I had I had
done a short that was in this evening of shorts
(39:05):
and there you pop up. You were talking about that
you're in so many things and you jump around. Yes,
it was so good. It was such a good short.
But here I am thinking, like, how terrific? Like you,
I feel it at this stage in my life, in
(39:26):
my career, in my fifties now that it's sort of
like it's ego free when it comes to work. It's
sort of like if a friend or or if it's
a short film which is for for no money. It's
sort of like I'm paying to do it because I
have to transport myself there and pay for the meal
all over. It doesn't matter. It's like the joy and
(39:49):
the luxury too, Like I think there's That's the other
thing I could say is like I have the luxury
being able to do jobs like that, but but we do.
We do to have no ego about any of it.
I feel the joy, like you said, you love it,
and I just feel that in every single thing you
do that you just love to work. And it's infectious.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
I don't know how infectious it is. It's it's not well.
You know, if if if a young actor sise, you.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Know, what do I do? The first thing I say
is don't do it. That's the first thing.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
But if they say, I say, do plays become good?
You have to become good, then do everything.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
You know. Here's something funny. I'm doing a show.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
One day tomorrow, in three days next week, a show
called Evil Okay. It's on Paramount Plus. The people created
are great, great people, great creative minds, the Kings and
why not. It's a guest spot. It's two episodes. It's
not that much money.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
And.
Speaker 5 (40:59):
I play a dun and in the first episode, all
I'm doing is say and well, the defense is the defense,
you know, sit down, please actually over well just stuff
like that, and there's no dramatic arc. And then I'm
reading the second episode same thing there, would you would
would you like to respond? There's defense, just the defense,
(41:19):
rest sit like that.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It's judge talk, judge talk.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
And then I have a one and a half page
scene that is so and I'm going, why why did
they hire me? And then I have a one page scene,
one and a half pages.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
They're so good, it's so good.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Now I didn't take it because of that, but that
is when I read the script, I said, oh, that's
why they want me, so I get to do that.
And then I thought they're paying me not a lot
of money at all, But who am I think back
to when you're a young actor and there people around
(42:00):
today going, I kill quill for two episodes on a
show and the money is not in hundreds, it's in thousands.
It's not that many, but it's in thousands what I
and I get to go to work rather than a
Wednesday where I'm sitting at home all day.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
You know, yes, of course I want to do that.
It's what I do. This is what I do.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
It's what I do.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
It's it's what I do. It's the love of the work,
and also love it well.
Speaker 5 (42:38):
There is no no better place and you'll both know this,
there's no better place to be than.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
On set, right, but also remembering where you came from
and that you know, a top of show a few
thousand dollars is not what it's about.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
It's not I remember the first time I turned something down,
and I was pristitious person, and I said, I'm never
going to work again. I at all.
Speaker 5 (43:06):
I jin all, Yeah, what kind of hoopris do I
have that I'm turning down work?
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Are you? Are you kidding me? Who am I to
turn down work? Now?
Speaker 5 (43:17):
Chris Steve, your husband looks at twenty scripts a week.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Has to turn this stuff down? I don't. I get
to do everything.
Speaker 5 (43:27):
Can my agent and manager mix and match and weave
do Okay, I would shoot this Tuesday. Then I have
to fly to Seattle to work Friday, Monday and Tuesday
and then come back and do something.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
But let them do that, right, let them sort of weave.
Speaker 5 (43:44):
It, yes, right, But when BEN take something that's a
three month commitment to do.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
So he has to turn stuff down.
Speaker 5 (43:53):
I don't right, I don't have to and I don't
want to do what Ben does. Ben has to be too,
Ben has to work too hard. Ben has to score
a movie where.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Ben's listening to this. He'll be listening to this right now.
He will be. He listens to every episode and he's
going to be in a hunting in agreement with you.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Well, but he loves it too though.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
He loves what he does.
Speaker 5 (44:21):
But but he has economic concerns too, because if his
movie fails, he doesn't get the next great script. It
doesn't matter what I do. People will say, Oh, Ben
Stiller has a new movie. I'm gonna go see a
new Ben Stiller movie. Oh I saw the new Ben's
Stiller movie. It's dreadful. You know what, what what are
(44:44):
you gonna do? They go, I went and saw this
movie you always in. It was Richard Kind. Movie was terrible.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
He was funny. It doesn't matter. He's eighteen dollars. Let
me see the Richard Kind vehicle.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
No, there is a lot of freedom and being one
of the great character actors there really is.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
There is a tremendous my shoulders and my neck do
not have the tension.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
The bestseller.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
You're listening, then you hear that the tension.
Speaker 5 (45:16):
But also but he takes something. An industry opens up
because dry cleaners have to get work, hotels will get work,
crews will get work, all sorts of people, caterers. I'm
just going, you know, the different I show up. It's
a different, it's a different. Yeah, and I love it.
(45:39):
And by the way, may I say, because you said
I'm in my fifties, I don't know how you look
so good. And I've seen you a person and I
now see you on on screen.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Oh, Richard, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Make me the question, is your mom still with us?
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Yes, Joan, Yes? No, Joan Joan Taylor. You know that
I'm Christine Joan Taylor and she's the jo She was.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Very lovely to me at those early days.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yes, we've been in each other's lives for a long time,
and you talked about there's no better place than being
on the set, and it made me just think of
going back, kind of coming full circle to David. It
was us me becoming friendly with David and Andrew Hill
Newman on that set, like just guest stars bonding, you know,
and then leading to meeting you like on a lunch break,
(46:39):
and it like that's the joy. I feel like there's
there's all these yea condition.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
We all had our groups, you know, like we had
the White Squall cast on a group of my friends.
Were you guys at Matthew.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Perry with Matthew Modine.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
No, it was Jeff Bridges and a whole group of
young guys that I came up with.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
But yeah, a lot a lot of people do, especially now.
Speaker 5 (47:06):
I did Summer Stop, and I said, I became so close.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
I mean, you're you're sleeping with these people.
Speaker 5 (47:13):
You you say I'm going to stay so close, and
you do, and then it dissipates and then you don't.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
But I'm still friends with my uh Spin City people.
Speaker 5 (47:23):
I know. I have one of the guys on Spin City.
He was in the Vietnam hotel. I can't remember what
it was, but like Stephen Webber and Although and Don Hiedo,
they all remained friends.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
You have your white squad people.
Speaker 5 (47:38):
No, you must say you have for your people you
remember and I'll tell you something else. Like Irving Berlin said,
there's no people like show people.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, Oh, Richard, thank you. We've taken up a full
hour and this went by in a flash.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
Well now what do I do? Just go back and
lie in bed in my underwear.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Well, now you're dressed. You're dressed, and you've got your
team made.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
No, why don't you go singing in the rain practice
your musical skills.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
That's actually a bad idea.
Speaker 5 (48:11):
It's on the lamp post, you know when you swing
around a lot of COVID and Germans.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Too old for that stuff.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
Yeah, they haven't washed it out.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
It was so nice to meet you, Richard. A pleasure
to meet.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
This was awesome Richard. I love you. I love your family.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
I love to your whole family.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Well you too, you too? Everyone?
Speaker 3 (48:36):
All righty, I love you guys. Yeah, I love.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Thank you Richard.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
I mean, really, what a sweetheart of a guy.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
And what a force right Like it's just Richard starts
And I can't tell you, David like knowing him for
the thirty plus years that I've known him, and then
our daughters were in the same class together at school
and graduated high school together, and so I would see
him at all these parent events as well.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Didn't you know him from out your La days.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
No, we met when I was in when I was
twenty two, right.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
I mean yeah, when you were doing Blossom. But then yes,
that whole friend, the whole circle.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yes, I mean we were like Richard was always out
of town, like he's talked about like doing tours of musicals,
like that's he just but every time. And he is
such an Upper west Side staple here in New York City,
like you'll just see him and he has a like
I was going to bring it up to him, but
I didn't want to make myself conscious. He has this
(49:36):
great purple golf sweater that you can spot like a
mile away on the Upper West Side.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
It's like like his character big Body exactly.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
It's a purple v neck and he would wear it
to like the parent things at school. I think it's
a golf sweater that he got from some golf club.
But I will see that purple sweater like he where
he's like, ah, I'm just parking the car and I
run into him all the time, and he's just like home,
he's just family.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
He's seriously it's like it's play on words. His last
name is kind. But he really does seem like the
sweetest guy, Yeah, and hang.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Out with them.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
And has no problem. I mean he he. What I
love about him too, is he he gives himself all
the credit in the world and also is the most
self deprecating person in the world, you know what I mean,
Like he's all of it. He he knows he's worked hard,
he knows he's gotten better over the.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Years, and which I loved him saying that, I know,
I'm a kind I'm a generous person. Say that about yourself.
That's like so important.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Yes, yes, anyway, that was so much fun, Yes, awesome,
and that's going to do it for us. But come
back next week. We got another fun one.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Have a great week.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah, good ye, have a great week, and thank you
for listening.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Thanks for listening. Make sure to subscribe and give us
five stars.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Please follow us on Instagram at Hey dude. The nineties
called See you next time.
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