Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Happy New Year's Eve. Today we continue our retrospective featuring some of our favorite interviews from 2025. Though he's not often cast in leading roles, you'd likely recognize Richard Kind and his distinctive voice from his appearances in hundreds of movies and TV shows.
Last month he was celebrated at the New York Comedy Festival benefit, appropriately titled Richard Kind Everywhere All at Once. In the series Only Murders in the Building, he was the neighbor Vince Fish, a.k.a. Stink-Eyed Joe, with the highly contagious case of pink eye.
He played Larry David's cousin in Curb Your Enthusiasm, co-starred in Mad About You, was in the Michael J. Fox show Spin City, and earlier in his career was a cast member of the Carol Burnett show, Carol and Company. In the Coen Brothers film A Serious Man, he was the deeply troubled brother. His youthful ambition was to be in a Stephen Sondheim musical. He's been in two.
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.
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Chapter 2: Who is Richard Kind and what is his role in Everybody's Live?
After he says something vulgar to Mulaney, Mulaney starts to apologize to the audience.
Okay, so normally I'd apologize for such a crass comment.
Gentlemen, I crave ideas. And when an idea hits me, it grips me. And it tortures me. Until I master it.
Listen, Gene... I know you think you're Gene Simmons, man, but Richard, if you're in there somewhere, please, just give me a sign.
I didn't expect you to greet me with open arms, but I did expect open legs. All right.
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 don't know anything about Gene Simmons. My reference about Gene Simmons is Kiss, seeing him with makeup, and then John sent me the very contentious interview you had with him. So I said, oh, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be that contentious, very, very, I don't want to say stoic, but he was not even somber, but he was still. And he just talks these awful things.
He was awful to you. He was terrible.
I got a lot of mileage out of that, though.
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Chapter 3: What was Richard Kind's experience working with Stephen Sondheim?
And that's what I thought about. So, you know, it was, that's what it was. And I had a dream, my grandparents used to take me to Broadway because they lived in New York. We lived near, we lived in Pennsylvania in Bucks County. And so I would come, where I was from, my joke is you either went to the Spectrum to see the Rolling Stones or you went to Madison Square Garden.
I went to Madison Square Garden. All my friends went to the Spectrum and still live in Philly. I went to New York because that's what I knew. My grandparents showed me the city. And I wanted to be Zero Mostel. Zero Mostel and Robert Preston. That's who I wanted to be.
Oh, well, you got to be Zero Mostel. I did. You've been in his role in two shows. And a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum. I did.
And I did. And the producers. Listen, your intro was really good because you pointed out things I'm very proud of. A lot of people just look at the IMDb page and give some little credit of a movie that I don't even remember doing. But I liked what you mentioned. The thing is, when you look me up, you see a lot of the movies and TV shows. But I did an opera at New York City Opera.
But I want to get back to the fact that you're not a George Clooney-level celebrity.
Right.
But everybody seems to know you. You know a lot of celebrities. And you've seen things that you're grateful you don't have to go through. So what are some of the things that you've seen celebrity friends go through that you're grateful you don't have to deal with?
All right. I'll tell you a story. I knew Matt Perry when he was a kid. And we would go out drinking.
It was Matthew Perry from Friends.
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Chapter 4: How does Richard Kind feel about his level of fame?
Every day. But a flip side of that, a friend of mine said, I may not always be great anymore, but I think I'm good enough to never stink. You know what I mean? I'm not going to be bad. I'll be fine. There are there are parts that I hope I'm great in. And I always yearn not just to be great, but to be better than everybody else in a scene. I want to be great.
But if you're playing tennis with a better tennis player, it's just not going to happen. So there were some times when I say, you know what? You're not going to win an Academy Award for this role. Just do it correctly. Don't try and stand out. Don't try and steal. Just do it. Just do the part. And that's a very different way to come to set.
I want to talk with you about working with Stephen Sondheim and being like originating a role, originating a Stephen Sondheim role. Wow.
Chapter 5: What was Richard Kind's journey to becoming an actor?
Unfortunately, it was a show that never quite caught on and went through several iterations and even several titles. So you were in Bounce as Addison Meisner, one of two brothers who was a Boca Raton that they helped build.
Mm hmm.
You originated a role, and before we talk about what it was like to work with Sondheim on a Sondheim musical, I want to play a song from it, and it's called Get Out of My Life. And I chose this because it's a good song, and you're really great in it. This song is part singing and part really acting. Thank you. Because you're angry with this.
Mm-hmm.
And it really shows you off. There's a song by Stephen Sondheim from his musical Bounce with my guest, Richard Kind.
Addie?
I just want you to know that I appreciate... Get out of my life! Get the hell out of my life! Whatever this race we're in, okay, you win. It's done! And now that you've won, get out of my life! It used to be fun to watch you scheme and even be a part of it. At the start of it, it got to be fun to stand and beam at the suckers. But I learned that from you.
I thought that we'd go from scheme to dream. But then I thought we were a team.
Amen.
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Chapter 6: How did Richard Kind's childhood influence his career?
Now you've got an orchestra. So we're doing Zitzprobe and I go to the bathroom at the same time he goes to the bathroom. I didn't harmonize a lot. There were a lot of just solos in the show. And I said, thank you so much for not writing harmonies. I can't do them. And he said he can't do them either. He can write them, but he can't sing them either. His ear isn't good enough.
What was it like? He was one of your heroes. You always wanted to be in one of his shows. And here he was directing you and kind of being very picky about every word and probably about every note as well. Sure. Did that make you self-conscious?
Yes, I was very scared. I was nervous the whole time. I was a smoker at the time. That's when I quit smoking.
You quit smoking to sing Sondheim.
You have to. I had to do it well. I know what smoking can do. You have to have breath control. You know, you have to go to the end of the line. You can't take a pause in the middle of one of his words or one of his sentences. He writes for actors. That's what he does. His songs, although lyrical, are more actory if you're doing a show. Yes, Send in the Clowns as a solo piece is a lovely song.
But in the show, it takes on a completely different, it's a completely different animal. And you have to be able to serve that. Actually, if you're in a sitcom, you can't take a breath in the middle of a line because in order to get the proper laugh, you have to take it to the end of the sentence. Otherwise, the audience may hear where the joke is gonna go or you can't surprise them.
And there's a rhythm to a joke. You have to be able to control what that rhythm is. So smoking is your enemy. You have to have lung control.
So we talked a little bit about working with Sondheim on one of his musicals. Earlier in your life, your music was being a singing waiter in a Manhattan restaurant. How did that work, and what was your restaurant repertoire? I'm thinking, speaking of Sondheim, that you have to sing upbeat, ingratiating songs, and you can't sing a song from Sweeney Todd like, "'They All Deserve to Die.'"
You don't. For me, I sang... My audition song was Hey There. I would sing that. I'd sing... The big song was There Is Nothing Like A Dame. I got to sing that pretty well. One night... One night, Theodore Bickell was in the restaurant. I wanted to impress him so much. So I wanted to sing There Is Nothing Like a Dame, which goes up to a high C, I think, or a G, let's say.
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Chapter 7: What challenges does Richard Kind associate with celebrity life?
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You had a teacher, an acting teacher, who said to you, you're not going to get the roles until you're in your 30s.
Right, it's not what Hollywood wants.
Yeah, so how discouraging was that when your own acting teacher said to you, you're not going to get the roles until you're 30s? Did you see that as discouraging, like he's telling me I'm not going to get roles? Terry, you heard me. Wait, wait, wait. Okay, go ahead.
Or did you see it as encouraging with him saying, like, it's going to take some time, but you will get roles when you're in your 30s. You will do well. No, I had to.
Which way did you interpret it? You're talking about two teachers. Oh, my high school teacher. I went to school with a great actor named Robert Curtis Brown. You'd know him as the yuppie in trading places. Now, he's had a career that's much larger. But whenever I mentioned his name, that's his most famous role. He was a great actor. He is a great actor and a handsome guy.
So I had my high school teacher say, you know, go go into your dad's business because Hollywood is looking for Robert. OK, that's who they want. I acknowledge that. Then I went to college as a pre-law so that I would take over my dad's store. Frank Galati, a very well-known Chicago theater maven at the Goodman at Steppenwolf and a teacher at Northwestern. So when I...
got his advice, he said, look, go be a producer and so you get to be in show business, but your business, I go, no, it's either I'm an actor or I'm a rich jeweler. And I said, he said, well, you're not going to get famous or get known until you're in your 30s when you sort of grow into who you are. Did I believe him? Terry, I wish that I could say this is what I chose to do.
All I did was say yes to whatever was presented and my path was created by that. I didn't set out to join Second City. I went to some place in Chicago, Practical Theater Company. They saw me and said, do you want to do Second City? I said, yeah, well, Second City taught me a lot.
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Chapter 8: What insights does Richard Kind share about his acting philosophy?
And I'm waving my arms going, look at me, look at me, look at me. And yet with that look at me, look at me, look at me comes a fear of what I said earlier. I'm a fraud. Am I good enough? I don't know whether or not what I'm doing. And I think any actor worth his salt would like to be better and give a better performance than what they gave. There's, oh my gosh, did I do it correctly?
Should I do it again? I need affirmation all the time. It's why I like live theater. Even if it's a drama, I can feel the audience listening to me, liking me. And I'm an empty urn. There's no bottom to the urn of love that I need. That is lack of confidence. And yet my ego says, go out and do it and do it and do it louder than everybody else. who I am. I'm oversized in my voice.
I'm loud in my opinions. When I'm opinionated, I'm really loud. And even my acting. A funny line that my friend Craig Bierko said in a toast once, he goes, the astronauts were up in space and they saw two things, the Great Wall of China and every acting choice Richard Kind ever made.
I love that line so much.
It's so funny. It's so funny. Is it how I chose to live my life? No, I wouldn't choose it, but it's what I'm saddled with.
Do you tell jokes? I mean, you obviously have a great sense of humor, but do you actually tell joke jokes?
Terry, nobody tells a joke better than I do.
Oh, great. Do you want to tell us one that you love?
Sure.
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