Terry Gross

He starred in a production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts, and in the musical Bounce, he originated the role of Addison Meisner and got to work with Sondheim.

I interviewed Richard Kind in April.

We began our conversation talking about his current role at the time on the Netflix series Everybody's Live with John Mulaney.

Kind was the announcer on the show and also Mulaney's sidekick.

Let's start with a clip from an episode of Everybody's Live.

John Mulaney explains that Kind got hit on the head with a Kiss album, which left him with a traumatic brain injury, and now Kind thinks he is Gene Simmons.

He's dressed like Simmons, has hair like Simmons, and talks like him too.

After he says something vulgar to Mulaney, Mulaney starts to apologize to the audience.

Richard Kind, welcome to Fresh Air.

I have to ask you, because this question is as much about me as it is about you.

So when I interviewed Gene Simmons many years ago, he said to me, if you want to welcome me with open arms, you'll also have to welcome me with open legs.

I got a lot of mileage out of that, though.

Yeah, I got a lot of attention.

Yeah.

Insulting me was actually doing me a favor.

Okay, okay.

Yeah.

You're an actor, and you've been in so many things, but you're not a big celebrity.

Everybody's seen you in at least one thing.

So many people know who you are, but you're not famous in the way that your good friend George Clooney is famous.