November 26, 2024 • 52 mins
Meet Richard Kind, an actor and comedian who you've definitely seen in all the movies and television shows. Even if you think you haven’t. You have. From Pixar to Broadway, it's impossible to not have watched and loved something that Richard has been a part of. He’s a hilarious outspoken delicious individual maverick national treasure who doesn’t have much in the way of a filter. I adore him and you will too. EnJOY!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
(00:21):
I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are
available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour
or at your local outlet in your region. My name
(00:45):
is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy.
I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
My guest on the Joy podcast today is a gentleman
who holds a very special.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Place in my heart.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Not only is he a fabulous actor there's been in
all the good things, but he also has a very
significant small part in my own personal story, and you're
about to find out what that is, along with a
great many other things about the fabulously interesting, very original, lovely,
(01:26):
super talented, famous actor Richard Kind.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I'm in New England. Are you in New York? I
am where? Well, I'm not going to tell you. I'll
tell you after.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Oh right, okay, yeah, because now we're on the Yeah,
I'm in New England.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
That's very lovely. Yeah, no, it's very nice. But of
course I live.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
In New York now too. No, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Well, I'm moving back to the city. I'm moving back
to the Upper east Side. Okay, because you're on the
Upper west Side, Upper west Side. Yes, I think of
you as the quintessential New Yorker, which I know that
you were born.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I wasn't born here.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I lived years and years in lah Yeah, I'm an
Upper Whenever I lived in New York, I lived Upper
west Side. I lived downtown for a while during spin City.
But yeah, Upper west Side is the best. It's where
to raise my kids.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And also I think of you as being the quintessential
New Yorker. For a very specific moment in time ahead
to could.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
So.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Do you remember when you were doing The Producers on Broadway?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Right, And I came to see you in that show Broadway. Yeah,
I came to seeing that show and I came to
see you in that show, and very briefly afterwards, I
came back and I said, Hi.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
You probably don't remember that because it was a lot
of stuff going on.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well, funnily enough, I came back, I said hi after
the show, and you were great in the show.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Great, And I came back to tell you that.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
And then after that I went uptown because I had
to do a thing, and I went to this event
uptown called New Yorkers for Children, where I met a
woman that very night who I'm still married to.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Always that fantastic? Is that the story? That is great?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I know that is great, But seriously, how was I
You were great?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
You were great?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
You're getting it was a high point of the evening,
so you might have been in a good mood.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I think I was.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I think you cheered me up. I think it was.
It was a very funny. It is a very funny show.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
So wonderful. Was it your first time seeing the show?
It was the first time seeing it live.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I'd seen obviously the movie, but i'd never seen, never
seen the musical.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Okay, yeah, great. Oh that's a wonderful story, isn't it.
I'm so happy for you. Oh great.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So in our family every year on Christmas Eve, we
have a photograph of you on our Christmas tree and
all that, and the children saying thank you that this
is a.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Joke, this is a joke.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Okay, good, thank God, thank God.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
No.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
But you famous? I mean you're famous an You're the
famous actor Richard Kind. But okay, okay, but you're very,
very very famous in our family because the night I
went to see Richard Kind of Producers, I met the mother.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I embraced that reality. That is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Well that's a very special place in in my heart.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
But you, I think of you as being a Broadway guy,
But I suppose you're not really a Broadway guy.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Really.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I mean, when you are, you're a Broadway guy, you're
an actor, you do all of those things.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Right, I kind of tell you.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
I was forty five years old when I made my
Broadway debut, but I've been going to Broadway play since
I was seven. I go, I see every thing, and
I do plays all the time. I do a play
a year, easily a play a year, but it was
very late because I kept wanting to be an actor,
(05:10):
and I never thought, well, I was in second city.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I just thought I had to go. I had to
do it.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I had to make my mark, I had to do
TV at the movies, and I always thought that Broadway
would take me away from it, even though I loved
doing Broadway. But Broadway meant a year of being in
that particular show, which I did not want to do.
I don't like the way a Broadway. Is it so
an ecosystem as well?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Like there are people who exist only in Broadway, who
are like massive stars in Broadway, and then you get
to you know, halfway along Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
And people don't know where they are. I mean, is
it's exactly you know I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
People think, oh, you're really having a moment now and
everything like that.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
No, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I have been working as much now as I have
been my whole career. It says the platforms are larger
and are getting attention, and there were bigger stars, but
I've been doing this just like this for a long
long time. It's just that now people are seeing it more. Well,
it's funny. I feel like maybe I have a different
(06:15):
perception of view.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I think of you as being a big star since
the nineteen ninety since spent thy Since.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
You're wrong, No, and I are wrong. I am.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I'm a go to character actor along with about fifteen
or twenty others who beat me out for parts regularly,
people who I admire.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I'm somebody who.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
If you see me, if the normal guy sees me,
they know my face, they can't place it. They certainly
don't know my name, But more and more lately they're
knowing my name. But it was always used to joke.
They would see me, they go, but did I go
to high school with you? Am I related to you?
Do you owe me money? It's one of those they
(07:01):
can't place it. Now they are more or less able
to place it. And I'll tell you this, Well you
might even know this. What's your off TV? A year later?
They don't know you? No, that's true. Well, no, they
do not know you. That used to be true until
(07:23):
YouTube and the Internet created a whole new repeat structure
for old shows, like I stopped doing my Late ninth
show ten years ago. Ten years ago, I stopped ten
years ago, and I still get people coming to live
shows who clearly never weren't old enough to watch me
(07:45):
when I was doing the show. Who say, I watch
you on YouTube like I'm someone who does a YouTube channel.
I okay, you do have them what you had Like
when I was on Spin City. Yeah, millions of people
watch you now now thousands watch on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
We used to have millions.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Okay, the glory because I was doing the Drew Carry
show at the same time you were doing.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
That's true, that's true. Well, okay, Drew Carry was huge.
That was huge for you. But but no, here's what
I'm saying is is after I did let's say, Spin City,
I really would get people going, aren't you acting anymore?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah? It was.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
It's silly you Literally they go, I go, I am,
You're just not watching the channels I'm on and when
And I still get it and I just go, am
I not acting? I'm on everything all the time, on
everything now everything You're on, all the good things, the building. Correct,
(08:47):
You're always on John Mulaney, that John Mullaney all in.
Everybody's in LA. I'm all over the place. And somebody
will really ask me nowadays, aren't you acting anymore, and
I'm I'm mystified, Well, who is.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
This asshole that got to be? Many of those people
got his name.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I took his name and I found that and he
and I are having lunch and I'm going to go
through and we're going to go through my IMDb page.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
It's a funny thing because people people sometimes will get annoyed.
I've noticed that if they say to you, hey, where
do I know you from? And you're like, I don't
want to, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
That's the worst, you know what I but I now
have a thing. I say, uh, you know, I go,
what do you do for a liberty? He goes, I'm
a dentist. What was the name of the last person
he gave a crown to?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
That's what I give.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
That's what I say, or I'll just say they literally
me right now. They go, what do I know you're from?
And I go, everything, Just look up my IMDb page. Yeah,
well you are kind of in everything. I mean now
I'm in when I talked when I when you turned
up and only murders in the building, I thought, oh,
really really that, I mean, how how long did that take?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Two seasons?
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Well, here's the thing. Is that you know, people ask
why don't you want to murders in the building? I go,
because they haven't asked me.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
All they got to do.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Is ask me, So we have to three seasons they
asked me.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You're right. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
It's a funny thing, though, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Because I think fame and it's particularly proper actors like you,
who are like real actors who do it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
It's a thing, and it's a craft and.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
A job and an art that you really care about,
and fame almost seems like a like a byproduct, like
it's not. I don't think of you as someone who look,
maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think of you as
someone who who courted being famous. It's more about being
famous as a byproduct of what you do.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
And they don't know you.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
They know who you play, because who you play, you
play a very vary bunch of people.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah. I like to say that.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I do. When I was a kid and I lay
in bed dreaming of fame, and I did. I dreamt
of being an actor. I dreamt of being famous. When
I got angry at my parents and thought about running away.
My my note to my parents, I'll show you note
was I'm on the movie screen and I'm talking to them, going,
(11:19):
I'll show you you didn't let me go out and
me with my friends today, And I'll show you and
I you know you wanted to run away. This was
my my What do you say? What's the kind of
note you write when you're.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
My runaway note?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
My runaway note was a And so I did want
to be a star when I was younger, and then
I started acting, started having a career, and I realized
I want to be a good actor.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
And I'll tell you this too.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
As you probably know, because you know a lot of
people who have achieved great fame, fame is a prison.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Anybody who goes after fame is a fool.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Therefore, absolutely, how do you how do you convince a
young person that fame should not be your goal, not
only that, stay far away from it.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
You know why, if I could redo it, if I
could relive my life, I would try and find a
profession that had zero visibility, that had oh no no, oh,
Craig please, no no no, no, no, no no no why,
or a dry cleaner or a.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Hit man that I have to stay out of everybody's way, yes, no, no,
no ah, Look, I I do.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Like people coming up to me and saying they like me.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
With my ex wife, we would be walking down the
street and we'd be arguing and somebody would go, oh,
I love you, and I go, honey, please see so
ah it's I do like people coming up and saying
and giving me affirmation.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
It does make me happy.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
She used to say, how can you have a bad
day people come up to you like that? What are
you out of your mind? But I do happen to
like affirmation. I love applause. It's one reason why I
like theater. I like, you know, while you're on stage,
forget the applause. You can hear them listening. You can
(13:23):
hear them understanding what you're saying and connecting. And it's
not with sound. You just feel it. It's a wonderful feeling.
When I do single camera, I can't feel anything. They
yell cut and I go, was that any good? I
don't know. I want to hear. I want a symbiotic
(13:43):
relationship with the audience. You do it with your stand up.
You certainly did it on your talk. So yeah, But
I wonder if if that is that something that you're
lacking and not you Is that something that one is
lacking in passional relationships that you're looking for an app
animation a single person can give you.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I can't give you. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
There are other ways of finding satisfaction in the world
and people who, as you just said, if I could
sun the public life and find satisfaction that whole thing.
But I don't. I know my makeup is I like
this affirmation. It makes me happy. Applause. All that stuff
(14:26):
makes me happy. As I get older, Okay, I can
leave it all behind, but I still like it. I
still I don't the amounts that that bottomless hole of
affirmation has been filled up a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I'm okay.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I think that's quite interesting because also the idea of
I've talked to quite a few people, very successful people
like you, about ambition and what it looks like when
you're young, like my the ambition that that I felt
when I was young, and I've heard a lot of
people say had a sort of sort of and even
the runaway no story and how to kind of anger,
(15:11):
a kind of a kind of fucked you about it.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
And well that that that that that's what those famously
the comedians will say, I killed them, I slayed them.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I had them in the aisle.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
That's like, I need you, but I hate you, and
I because I hate needing you.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, I need them, I do. I still need them
as much as you did. Do you think.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
No, no, no, But when I act, I do. I
don't need them off stage as much. But when I'm acting, Yeah,
I need somebody to say that's great. I always say
I have an enormous ego and no confidence. Yeah I
need I need to be told you're doing good. I
(15:54):
also have a friend who did say, and I do
believe this. I may not always be great, but I
don't think I can suck anymore. Yeah, you know, I think.
I think, I think I got it. I made a
great and I yearned for great. I really do. Sure,
I really do. Uh and not for the fay but
(16:15):
the money or anything. I really want to do a
good job. Sure, I feel the same way. I never
began each stand up show by tailing the audience. How
long I've been doing it, a number of awards, and
you know a rough idea of how much money I've made,
and and that's so. So if the show sucks tonight,
it's not me, it's just not Oh that's funny. Well,
(16:36):
that's hilarious. I would never say that, but so so.
In other words, I've got it all. I've had my affirmation.
This is on you.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
It's so on you.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
This is let's see how you do. You paid your money.
I'm going to do my very best for you. But
if it's you don't like it, that's because you don't
like it than me. I'll do it. That's hilarious. I
think that's great. That's bad, fantastic.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Did you and I mean it too? Actually no, no,
I mean it sounds very I don't. I I do
not feel that way. There are nights that you're better
than other nights. You're just better, but you're not always
in charge of how the perception of that. Because I've
done this probably the night I came to see you,
(17:21):
and producers, you know that. You You you say to
an actor backstage or you've been on stage yourself, and
you tell them how great they were, and they'll say, oh, no,
you should have been here last night. Last night is
much better, and you've got to stop doing that.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You you do well.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I'll tell you why I have to stop doing that
is because then that person feels he's been seated m
hm and so it makes that person feel worse and
it and it's it may not be true about me.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
And the degree that you were better or worse is minuscule,
really miniscule. I could ask for another take, a second take,
and you put him side by side. You can't. You
can't tell the difference, right, you just you can't. A
(18:12):
good director can or sometimes do that. But most takes
they got it, you do have or it's or let
me put it this way, it's sufficient. Another take maybe
perfect and better. The other one was sufficient, But especially
(18:33):
if you're talking about a take, but directors looking at
and going that book behind Richard there, I don't.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Like that book there. Control of that. I have no
control of that.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I'm talking about whether or not I hooked in with
what is needed emotionally, what what I had in my eyes? Yeah,
stuff there, stuff like that that that nobody's diffident.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
What doesn't that?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Isn't that frustrating as an actor if you do a
very good take and you have lovely all the things
you want, and you rise and stuff, and then someone says,
that was great, but we heard that guy sneeze, Yeah,
let's do it again.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Kills me.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
That that that kills me because that moment in a bottle,
you know, to do to capture that that's precious and
you got it because there was a hair.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
In the lens, you know, and the lens or whatever
it is. You go, ah, why, I don't think that anymore.
I don't think you are.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I do know that Brando used to give his cinematographers
a bottle of champagne on the first day of the shooting,
and he would go up to him and say, if
it's not good, look at me, or if I think
it's not good, look at me, and the cameraman will
(19:53):
take the blame for.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
We got to do another. That's kind of clever. And
thought I thought that was very smart. You know what
to watch another?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, I remember watching a couple of very clever women actors.
We'vecome the actresses that I worked with over the years
who on the first day of shooting would go to
the DP. It was usually a man, and they would
flirt with the DP immediately. They would establish a relationship
with the DP, and I was like, what hell? And
(20:25):
I figured that the relationship over time. It was a
very kind of I have to look good and you
have to make me look good.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Times very interesting. There's more.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
The politics of a set are far more complex than
I think people understand, especially for things like the soundman
makes he says there's a bad noise and you know
we can't get around it, or the airplane or the
guy sneezes. Do you remember that time Christian Bale got
into trouble because there was a he was doing a
(20:55):
I think it was a mane.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Maybe, I think so.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I do remember, and he yelled that someone for screwing
up a take. And I remember because I was doing
late Night at the time, and I remember sticking up
for him. You ask a guy, You ask a guy
to go to the edge of what you can do,
to take himself to the edge of psychosis and let
it be recorded.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
And then you got upset with him.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
If he's upset while he's doing that, it seems ill
with you.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Standard I am with you now that now he got angry. Look,
I'm all for getting angry too. And yeah, and I'm
going to tell you something else. The guys who who
went to work for Scott Ruten, and Scott Ruten was
(21:43):
horrible to them and blah blah blah. Yeah, II go,
don't work for him. This is how he operates. Ye, what,
you're walking into a blind alley. No, it's it's like saying,
I heard them grenades go off, I saw the bombs.
I saw all the soulsers running. I said, you know what,
I'm going to go to the other side of the street.
(22:04):
Don't work for them a certain way.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
There's there's been quite a low on that recently. I
feel like the pendulum swinging the other way.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Don't worry. We got a president will take care of it.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Don't you that that won't shit? Oh please, it's all
going to be taken care of. Yes it is, Yes
it is. What about the what about the origins of it?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
For you? You don't come from a shoebiz family, do you? No,
not at all.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I think that the origins hold on. I gotta sneeze.
I didn't see that there ones of which, oh so
ones of which two acaus threes of disappointment.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
That's the rules of sneezing.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Oh no, oh god, well, no, wonder my life is
a disappointment.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Sneeze You always sneeze three times.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Always always needs three times. Really, that doesn't seem possible.
You can't always see three times. Craig I'm special. This
is what sets me apart.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Do you have the like specialities at the bottom of
your resume? Absolutely, you know, oh it's fight well, at
the bottom of my resume. I always say my specialties,
my biggest talent. Friends with George Clooney, that's my biggest talent.
That's my biggest Are you still friends with George Clinney?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but I don't like to talk
about it. He gets enough enough. No, I don't like
(23:36):
that do anything. But yeah, yeah, remember, of course I am.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
What I remember about Clooney is I'll talk about him
for a minute because when Clooney was doing er, I
was doing the Drew Carey Show, right.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
And the trailers were saying that Warner Brothers.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, he George would play basketball every day every day
and he would go over and play basketball.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
We'd come back and all the women hanging out with
trailers and watch him go play basketball. Cal that's funny.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
But he was and that's when his star was really
beginning to you know, TV doctor.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
And he was great, and he was always great and
he was.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
And I no, no, no, no, no, he was not always great.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
He was always great to us. He was always great. Person.
He was always great. He's always great.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Oh, since I know him, he was a great man,
a great level moral man.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, And and then that's what I mean. That's why
I don't judge anybody on the right. And I'm no judge.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
I don't know that if you judge George Clooney on
his uh, I'm the man you'll find no better.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
No, No, that's what That's what I always thought.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
He was like a really decent And I've never heard
a bad story about him either, which in Hollywood is
kind of like him and Henry Winkler.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
I think that's it. And Richard kind Have you heard
a bad story about me?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
No? I actually I haven't heard a bad the story
of it.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
I don't know bad stories about me. I can think
I feel bad about things, but I don't think people
have bad stories about me.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I find myself on it.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
But I feel guilty when I do do something wrong,
when when inside I know I've I've yelled at somebody
around nasty, but they don't know it.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
But I feel bad. I do well.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
I think that I think that you're allowed to be human.
I know is when I was doing the Late Night Show.
What I know is is because I met everybody. Everybody
like everybody comes through and.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
The mene to douchebag ratio was exactly the same as
any other walk in life.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I think that's true.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
You know, it's just that some people were great, some
people were assholes.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, actually I disagree with that.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
What One of the reasons why I think children should
not be actors, right, is because you are treating hid
differently by other people. On accountant does a good job,
you thank him. You know you have every profession, you
thank him. Thank you for doing a good job. Oh
(26:11):
my gosh, you went out of your way. You're fabulous
as a doctor. I owe you my life. Blah blah blah.
But an actor gets blind adoration, ad a ration, and
a child who goes to set, They all the adults
on set open doors for a kid. Can I get
(26:32):
you any water? They they cowtow to a child. They'll
open the door when a child should be opening a
door for an adult. And children should be beaten up
at school or should be you know, kept in their
place by their friends, and on set it's the opposite,
(26:59):
and they feel that they are elevated in the world.
I know this because I would come home and my
kids would go, Daddy, can he get me some water?
And I'm going, no, you get me water, but they don't.
I get my kids water.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
You know, it's funny. It's funny. I remember that.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
When I was doing Late Night, my kids were very young,
Like at the very beginning, I was still changing diapers,
so I would I'd be talking to these fabulously glamorous
people and then really within three or four minutes, I'd
be in my office changing a diaper and I can't
get absolutely wrestling.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Of the baby seat and going back home. Oh yeah,
my kids make fun of me. My dad.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
My son who's nineteen, literally will put his hands, going, Dad,
why do you talk? He's hilarious. I did what you're
talking about. I go, hey, I'm a national treasure, national treasure.
How dot like that? No, of course I'm not a
national I know that. And to them, I'm their dad,
(28:12):
Yes I'm not. You know, we have we have to
take stocking ourselves. But if you but an actor keeps
getting told oh you're wonderful, Oh I love you, Oh
you bring me such joy, They're going to go around
thinking that so that develops into a just it can
(28:33):
it can? It can if you yes, if you do
know so, the ratio is not the same.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
I think my feeling is it actually was, because first
of all, I didn't talk to a lot of kid
actors the well.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I what I did do?
Speaker 3 (28:49):
No, I'm talking about adult actors too. Well, an adult
actor isn't going to be lousy to you. He's about
to talk to you for twelve minutes. Why would they
be true?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
But everybody talks to each other, like the guy who's
like bringing them from the Lemmo end of the dressing room.
I know this guy. We talked to each other every day.
I say, what was he like? You go he was
a jerk or he was nice? I mean they they
they kind of.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah. It's a small Lettle ecosystem. So you get to
hear if.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Someone well also liberal in our politics, and liberality usually
means kindness. It means an openness to people. That's the liberal.
That's what liberality really means, is an openness. And I
think that actors are usually liberal in their politics and
liberal in their personalities and their acceptance of people. But
(29:41):
I will tell you this and who I'll be damned
if I can remember who it was. But I was
talking to a director who was an actor. First, Oh, god,
who was it?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Boy? I wish I could remember. Oh, I know who
it was. It was still close, old man and old man.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
He was on thirty something and I know him well
and he's married to Melissa Gilbert and I know him. Oh,
let's google it because he's a great he's a dear,
dear friend. But he was talking about he was in
on a meeting with like the producers and with the
uh uh some of the raters and everything, and go, well,
they're really nuts, and he goes, yeah, we tim Busfield,
(30:23):
stop it, stop looking, tim Busfield.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Tim Busfield, must it right now? And he goes, of
course they're nuts.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
You're asking them to bring up emotions in an unnatural
situation and to make pretend we're asking them to go
to the EDGs. We don't ask normal people to do that.
And not only that, we're asking them to do to
go to the edge and then do it again and
didn't do it again, and didn't do it again within
the same two or three hours.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You gotta be nuts. That is nuts.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
That's not how people are also nuts, Because do you
remember the scene in TUTSI where Dustin Hoffman is walking
down Fifth Avenue for the first time, Justice Tutzi and
you can see him out of the crowd. The crowd
is the world. The nut is who we're looking at.
(31:19):
That's not right. The normality is you should be the
guy over his left shoulder. That's normal. We're abnormal. In
front of a camera, two people making out telling each
other is such intimate things while behind the camera are
fifty people. Who does that? There's fifty people watching. We
(31:43):
don't see it with the audience. There's fifty to one
hundred people behind the camera, and you're acting like an
idiot in front.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Of the camera.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Well, then, in that sense, do you think is unrealistic
this kind of new thing? Because everybody asked I bet
you you get asked this all the time. If you
mentioned George Clonin, he's a perfect example of it.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Someone will say is he nice? Like what? All the time?
He's like everybody else. He'll be nice.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Sometimes he'll be a jerker, other times he'll get you'll
get sad. But this whole idea, like if you if
you meet Lemmy from Motorhead, people will say, was he nice?
Speaker 3 (32:17):
You go, I don't need him to be nice. He's
Lemmy I don't need him to be nice, like Mick Jagger.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Is he nice? I don't care. I don't care if
he's nice.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
But niceness seems to be, you know, the single most
valuable commodity, and I think it is because it's amplified
now because of the ersatz fame that comes with social media,
so that that kind of they're like famous for being
exactly who you are, which I think it's I think
(32:47):
it's been that way since uh uh with the other
newspapers that not the National guy.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
But but you know, Hollywood and stuff. You know, in
the thirties when you learned about Jersey as stars. This
was a way of making of selling movies and a
way of selling movies stars, Hollywood confidential stuff like that,
which have gone on and on and today are you
(33:14):
know entertainment tonight. We want to get closer to these people.
Oh why used to joke that when people saw George
they wouldn't get They want to go up and maybe
he'll rub off on me. They get to me, they go, oh,
you know what, not too close in case it rubs off.
(33:37):
But people want to know these people because it's somehow
it gives them importance, important They met this person. They
I mean, that's Steve Martin's card. It gives Hewy hands
out cards. I met Steve Martin. I had an experience
or I had a personal experience with Steve Martin. He
doesn't sign autographs is when he gives away we do
(34:01):
want that.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
I like it.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
I love my kids. I brag about who I saw
that day. Today I was with Fred Armison, who I adore,
who I love to love him I admire. I'm going
to be working with him in a month. I love
Fred Armison. I'm going to tell my kids they did.
My kids are so tired of hearing me justify my
(34:24):
importance by who I saw that day.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
They are so tired of it, so you can't.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I was trying to actually get back to them when
you were a kid though. I wanted to get the
impulse and what makes the journey from a very like
that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
My grandparents, as I mentioned earlier, I came to New York.
My grandparents took me to place all the time. They
I was well educated in the arts. Oh, my daughter
is calling in now from Spain, and you know what
I mean. No, I'm talking to Craig ferguson Talk to her, Ah,
(35:04):
it's calling from Madrid. I want to come back. As
as Richard Kinines's children, they got it great. Oh yeah,
my kids too. She's on a semester abroad and she's
having a great time. So they took me to Broadway shows.
They took me to Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concert. I
(35:24):
had a magnificent upbringing. As far as culture, I think
that's why I'm who I am today. And I emulated
at the time Robert Preston, Zero Mustelle. These were heroes
to me. I loved them. And then during school I
did all the plays and I was the star. You know,
(35:44):
I was good. I had a modicum of talent. I
became much better within the past twenty years, but I
had talent when I was a kid. My mom used
to She didn't read that stuff, but she loved saying
who she liked, or who she may have met, stuff
(36:07):
like that, or who she went to college with, which
at the time were so on high.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
And I look back and I go, really, you're bragging
about him.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
But so and so went on a cruise and they met,
believe it or not, Jerry Paris.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
I'll always remember that. The Alberts were on a cruise
and met Jerry Paris and remained friends with him. What
but I was struck by that.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Then I grad I graduated from Northwestern, supposed to be
a lawyer and go to business school and go into
my dad's business. And my dad's best friend. I tell
the story all the time, where it was Sunday afternoon
watching football, and he said, you should try New York
(36:54):
and give it a go, because when you're forty, you're
going to resent your wife, You're going to resent your
children that you did not give it a go, that
you're still at the jewelry store selling, you know, being
a businessman. You could have been an actor. So I
did it, and I had talent. One year turned into
two and three, and by the age of twenty nine
(37:15):
point thirty, you should be going I don't like this
life of suffering and I should be getting more work
and people aren't appreciating me. That's when I went into
Second City. So for four years I was acting every night,
and I became better, and so I had no chance
(37:35):
to leave.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
That year.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Between twenty eight twenty nine and thirty three thirty four,
I was taken care of. I was making a living
in Chicago. I was famous. I was successful. I was
downright successful. There were six people in the world who
made a really good living acting or doing improvs and
(37:59):
it was it was that second city, and I was
one of the six.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
But a blessing that is a metal.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
It's very interesting in that time period you talk about, though,
because that's my experience as well. It's like I had
done stand up. I was doing stand up. I didn't
feel like I was getting anywhere with it. And round
about twenty nine I was like, actually, that's when.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I go sober as well. I was like, I don't
know about any of this.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
And in a very short space of time between twenty
nine and thirty two, I went from falling down drunk
in the street to a regular cast member on The
Drew Carey Show in Los Angeles. From Glasgow to Los
Angeles in that very short space of time.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
And I can tell how it happened.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Yeah, you know, I know, But it's at that age
and if you don't hit it, you could become an agent,
a writer, a producer. There's a what's his name, Danny
Jacobson who created spin City and ran spin City I'm sorry,
(39:11):
who created a man about you he was. He was
a handsome stud of a guy. He was in Greece
on Broadway and around that time after Greece and nothing happened,
and that's when he became a comedy writer. Went to work.
I was in and then became a really great comedy writer.
(39:32):
You and I know, if you can do anything other
than that, do it, anything anything other than that, do
it for many reasons. Number one, you're never gonna give
a perfect performance. And give a good performance, you'll never
be perfect. You can always be better. But you'd be
a good writer. You can be great.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
So he was lucky.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
He became a writer, producer and made a gazillion dollars.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
He's much wealthier than me. He was a on a
successful TV show. He made millions. I am a thousand there.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Successful act But your daughter's calling you from a said
master abroad in Spain.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Right, you know I'm one of the lucky ones. I
guess there are ten movie stars.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
What are there?
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Two hundred and fifty really big actors who make a decent, decent,
good what a good businessman would make. Yeah, two hundred
and fifty. Maybe there's four hundred. Yeah, maybe I don't know.
So it's very mercurial. It's very it comes and it goes.
I mean there are and sometimes that you're talking about recently,
(40:43):
you do seem.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
To be everywhere right now is interesting, But I've seen
there have been parts of your career.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
If I use to look at your career, there have
been moments in your career where you were everywhere. Like
if I think of you late, I think it's maybe
the late nineties, only two thousands, or maybe it's a
bit later than that, you were everywhere.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Then I remember you being everywhere.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Craig, I'm the lucky guy. I've worked consistently. You haven't
always seen me, but I've been doing shows. You do
a TV show, millions watching you do a show nine
hundred to twelve hundred people are watching you, or you're
doing a show for ninety people or three hundred.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
It doesn't matter. I'm always working.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
I'm not always making a lot of money, and not
a lot of people are seeing me, and I'm not
famous during those years when everybody's going, aren't you acting anymore?
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I'm always acting. I always am acting. I just am.
Are you are your kids drunk to you? I'm a
good father.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Congratulation No, No, I know no, but I kid, come,
I go. My kids were blessed with no talent, so
I got I'm very lucky. They don't like that joke.
But it's the truth. That's interesting. That's interesting. It's a
funny thing, though, would because I remember working with kid
(42:02):
actors in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
I didn't like working with them mine. I didn't like
being a red cand actors.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
I remember saying to the they would always say to
the parents, why do you let your kid be an
actor in Hollywood?
Speaker 1 (42:11):
And what did they say? They always say the same thing.
They always say they want to do it. They want
to do it, And I'm.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Like, that's not a reason to let a kid do
a thing because they want to do it.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
That's the opposite. My kids want to eat skintles for breakfast.
They say the same thing. You think my kids want
to eat vegetables. They'd rather have cotton candy. It's it's
they don't they don't know what the hell they want.
They want to do it.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Now, there's a couple of things as you bring that
in about child actors. I don't like child actors. I
don't I liked Fred Savage. I worked with Fred Savage.
He was one of the kid, And of course you
come across a couple, I instantly.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Don't like the parents. Instantly, that's on me.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
They may be great people, but I instantly don't like
the parents. And I'll tell you something else. I had
a therapist whose daughter said she wanted to be an actress.
Hell oh, letter, letter, don't let her get money the
minute money comes into it, all of a sudden, there
are consequences and there's competition in ways that are not healthy.
(43:26):
Let her do community theater, go do school plays. Let
her put on plays, pay for them.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Do what.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Let her act that she wants that. Let her act.
She wants to be famous, she wants to be on TV.
That's what she wants.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Well, that's that's what I think, because nowadays, I always
thought doing stand up comedy for me was kind of
like being a job, like a realtor.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
No one grows up wanting to be a realtor, but
it's a pretty good job. It's other things don't work out.
But no, you get people who want to be stand
up comedians. I like, I don't think.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
I think, yeah, eight year old's, ten year olds, I
think they want to be stand ups.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I think he's crazy. I don't necessarily agree with you.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
I understand that that's how you felt, but I believe
they do. Jeff Garland tells the story that his parents
took him at like an age ten to see Jimmy Duranty.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
And the ride home he says, does he get paid
for that? And they go yeah, he goes, that's what
I want to do.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
That's very interesting. Yeah, yeah, I know my experience with
that at all.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
I did not want to be Zero my I didn't.
I loved Zero Mysel, I loved Robert Presiding. They affected me.
But when I got to be seventeen eighteen, I wanted
to do what they did. You know. I always wanted
to be an actor, but I always wanted to be
Look how many kids want to be a baseball player.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
How many kids want to be a fireman? You know?
Speaker 3 (45:03):
And I say in my when I used to lie
in bed when I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old,
you know, kids want to dream of being center fielder
for the for the Yankees. I dreamt of being in
a Stanley Kubrick movie, in an original uh Stephen Sondheim,
how Prince musical, and a Woody Allen movie. That's what
I dreamt about. That's what happened to have you. Okay,
(45:26):
here's what it is. My joke is I I was
in an original Stephen Sondheim how Prince musical. I was
the lead Delete me who sings the way that I
said I could sing, not sing Sondheime, But I did
(45:47):
so I did that. I was never in a Woody
Allen movie, and even after Stanley Kubrick died, I thought
I'd have a better chance of being in a Stanley
Kubrick movie than a Woody Allen movie. And then finally,
Woody Allen did put me in a movie. You never
heard of it.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, It's called Rifkin's Festival, and it was it was fun.
It was fun. Nobody saw it. You know.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
It's now it's now during his uh uh you know
me too, a series of movies.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
But that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Yeah, that's interesting. Did you grow? Did you become friends
with him?
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Is he? Is he a friend? I can't sell.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
I can't say I was friends with him, But whenever
I saw him, he knew who I was because I
had auditioned for him a few times. And he's very,
uh shockingly popular culture savvy, he watches a lot of TV.
He knows a lot of stuff. Look, anybody who saw
a serious man, anybody who's doing saw a serious man.
You know that he saw a serious man. And I
(46:48):
think he liked me. Uh, and then he cast me.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
He can't good?
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Yeah, it was good. I had a great time. And
in fact, there was one moment. It was a dinner scene.
A lot of the people in the cast a very
small part, but I remember certain things. I remember specifically.
So at one point I was doing the my my
lines and I was doing that and he says, that's great, Richard,
(47:13):
that's great. Don't hit the joke. I knew exactly what
he was or, don't hit the line. I knew exactly
what he was talking about exactly, and.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
He was right. I hit. I hit the joke.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
And that's explain hitting the joke to me? What does
that mean? If I like you? You you played it
like it was a joke rather than a piece of.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Let's say, boy, it was a funny line that should
have been conversational, and I knew it was funny.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
I hit the funny. Let the let the funny sit.
He was right, and I can and I cringe.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
To this day.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
For having made that choice, I knew exactly what he
was talking about, exactly exactly. In the old days, I
wouldn't have been able to know. I knew exactly what
he's talking about. The other thing is is I was
doing the scene. I was saying the lines, and he
came out of the uh uh you know, the village
video village from a tent, and he was laughing and
(48:15):
he was happy. He says, good job, and then he
went back and everybody looked at me, and he goes.
He never does that. He never comes out and says
that was good or we're laughing, said it was good,
said it was good, See it was good. See.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
You're different to me, because if he had done that
to me, I think, I don't thought I'm going to
get fired. If he never does that and he's done it,
I'm going to get I'm going to get fired.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
That's what it is. I have it. I think I
have a restrust Craig. I was good. I knew I
was not good. That was good. No, no, no, I
knew that at that particular moment. I knew I was good.
I knew it was good. Yeah, I know, well you
are good.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
I know what stuff is good? Sometimes I still have
to hear it. I still have to hear it. How
was that do? Is that what you wanted? Sometimes when
i'm really path really pathetic, I'll say, when I know
it's good, I'll go to the director, go is that good?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
That's pathetic to me? And I know it it's horrible.
I don't think so horrible. I don't think so horrible.
I tell you what I think.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
I remember once having there was a bunch of musicians
I was doing. I had been directing a movie and
I there was a score the London Philarmonic and Abbey
Roads Studios and they were doing the score for the
movie and the conductor was conducting them in the worl grape.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
I was the director of a movie. What the big movie?
But they but we got the.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Orchestra cheat And I went out to the London Fello
after they were finished, and I stood up with the conductor,
uh stands and I said, I know you're all professional musicians.
I know that you do this day in and day out,
and that it's not romantic to you. But I have
to tell you what you people do is otherworldly, and
(49:54):
I cannot be express how much gratitude I feel for you,
your skill and your talent and being here today. I mean,
you got paid. But I just can't do. And I
could tell because I know people, I've worked with people.
I could tell by being honestly enthusiastic and grateful for
(50:15):
what they've done.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
That.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Who doesn't love hearing that? Who doesn't love a boy
a pat in the back and say you're great?
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Thank you? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (50:26):
Oh, I absolutely, Oh, I think that. I think that's
I didn't know where your story was going, But I
think I think I do that a lot. I think
I tell people my gratitude, my appreciations for what they do,
absolutely all the time. Absolutely, I do see and.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
I don't see.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
What I mean is I don't see anything pathetic about
wanting not for yourself.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
I think that I agree.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
Yeah, what was pathetic is that I knew I was
good and still know what. I still went fishing, still
still went fishing for the compliment.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Oh no, no, no, I can fish anyway. You are wonderful.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
I remained the enormous fan of your work, and because
you were always really kind to me when I was
on your show.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
That was on your show about three times, and.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
What time I think I did a bit for you. Yeah,
and yeah, you're always great. Your comedy was great. You
are uh there's you're not snarky, you you you're you know.
It's I think you want. I think you can. I
think you know snarky. I think you know the area
code of it all. And you can be not sarcastic,
but you can be you can poke fun but never meanly.
(51:48):
I say, I think the world of your comedy. Thought,
I thought you were great, certainly great, and thanks and
thank you for sort of introducing me to my wife
sort of. Oh no, no, no, I'm taking full responsibility.
I deserve to have a Christmas or ornament on your tree.
I deserve a Christmas you know what it's gonna happen.
(52:10):
It's gonna I'm gonna have hope so constructed for this year.
Thank you for your enjoy.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
However, it will be round, so don't make my face
too fat.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
I'm kidding, Okay, it would be appropriately jolly for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (52:23):
Fine, okay, Craig. I what a pleasure to talk to you.
It's very nice.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
It's a joy for me. Thank you, Rachel, thank you
so much. You bet
The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
(00:21):
I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are
available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour
or at your local outlet in your region. My name
(00:45):
is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy.
I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
My guest on the Joy podcast today is a gentleman
who holds a very special.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Place in my heart.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Not only is he a fabulous actor there's been in
all the good things, but he also has a very
significant small part in my own personal story, and you're
about to find out what that is, along with a
great many other things about the fabulously interesting, very original, lovely,
(01:26):
super talented, famous actor Richard Kind.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I'm in New England. Are you in New York? I
am where? Well, I'm not going to tell you. I'll
tell you after.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Oh right, okay, yeah, because now we're on the Yeah,
I'm in New England.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
That's very lovely. Yeah, no, it's very nice. But of
course I live.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
In New York now too. No, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Well, I'm moving back to the city. I'm moving back
to the Upper east Side. Okay, because you're on the
Upper west Side, Upper west Side. Yes, I think of
you as the quintessential New Yorker, which I know that
you were born.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I wasn't born here.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I lived years and years in lah Yeah, I'm an
Upper Whenever I lived in New York, I lived Upper
west Side. I lived downtown for a while during spin City.
But yeah, Upper west Side is the best. It's where
to raise my kids.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And also I think of you as being the quintessential
New Yorker. For a very specific moment in time ahead
to could.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
So.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Do you remember when you were doing The Producers on Broadway?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Right, And I came to see you in that show Broadway. Yeah,
I came to seeing that show and I came to
see you in that show, and very briefly afterwards, I
came back and I said, Hi.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
You probably don't remember that because it was a lot
of stuff going on.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well, funnily enough, I came back, I said hi after
the show, and you were great in the show.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Great, And I came back to tell you that.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
And then after that I went uptown because I had
to do a thing, and I went to this event
uptown called New Yorkers for Children, where I met a
woman that very night who I'm still married to.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Always that fantastic? Is that the story? That is great?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I know that is great, But seriously, how was I
You were great?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
You were great?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
You're getting it was a high point of the evening,
so you might have been in a good mood.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I think I was.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I think you cheered me up. I think it was.
It was a very funny. It is a very funny show.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
So wonderful. Was it your first time seeing the show?
It was the first time seeing it live.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I'd seen obviously the movie, but i'd never seen, never
seen the musical.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Okay, yeah, great. Oh that's a wonderful story, isn't it.
I'm so happy for you. Oh great.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So in our family every year on Christmas Eve, we
have a photograph of you on our Christmas tree and
all that, and the children saying thank you that this
is a.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Joke, this is a joke.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Okay, good, thank God, thank God.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
No.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
But you famous? I mean you're famous an You're the
famous actor Richard Kind. But okay, okay, but you're very,
very very famous in our family because the night I
went to see Richard Kind of Producers, I met the mother.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I embraced that reality. That is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Well that's a very special place in in my heart.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
But you, I think of you as being a Broadway guy,
But I suppose you're not really a Broadway guy.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Really.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I mean, when you are, you're a Broadway guy, you're
an actor, you do all of those things.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Right, I kind of tell you.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
I was forty five years old when I made my
Broadway debut, but I've been going to Broadway play since
I was seven. I go, I see every thing, and
I do plays all the time. I do a play
a year, easily a play a year, but it was
very late because I kept wanting to be an actor,
(05:10):
and I never thought, well, I was in second city.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I just thought I had to go. I had to
do it.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I had to make my mark, I had to do
TV at the movies, and I always thought that Broadway
would take me away from it, even though I loved
doing Broadway. But Broadway meant a year of being in
that particular show, which I did not want to do.
I don't like the way a Broadway. Is it so
an ecosystem as well?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Like there are people who exist only in Broadway, who
are like massive stars in Broadway, and then you get
to you know, halfway along Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
And people don't know where they are. I mean, is
it's exactly you know I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
People think, oh, you're really having a moment now and
everything like that.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
No, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I have been working as much now as I have
been my whole career. It says the platforms are larger
and are getting attention, and there were bigger stars, but
I've been doing this just like this for a long
long time. It's just that now people are seeing it more. Well,
it's funny. I feel like maybe I have a different
(06:15):
perception of view.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I think of you as being a big star since
the nineteen ninety since spent thy Since.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
You're wrong, No, and I are wrong. I am.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I'm a go to character actor along with about fifteen
or twenty others who beat me out for parts regularly,
people who I admire.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I'm somebody who.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
If you see me, if the normal guy sees me,
they know my face, they can't place it. They certainly
don't know my name, But more and more lately they're
knowing my name. But it was always used to joke.
They would see me, they go, but did I go
to high school with you? Am I related to you?
Do you owe me money? It's one of those they
(07:01):
can't place it. Now they are more or less able
to place it. And I'll tell you this, Well you
might even know this. What's your off TV? A year later?
They don't know you? No, that's true. Well, no, they
do not know you. That used to be true until
(07:23):
YouTube and the Internet created a whole new repeat structure
for old shows, like I stopped doing my Late ninth
show ten years ago. Ten years ago, I stopped ten
years ago, and I still get people coming to live
shows who clearly never weren't old enough to watch me
(07:45):
when I was doing the show. Who say, I watch
you on YouTube like I'm someone who does a YouTube channel.
I okay, you do have them what you had Like
when I was on Spin City. Yeah, millions of people
watch you now now thousands watch on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
We used to have millions.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Okay, the glory because I was doing the Drew Carry
show at the same time you were doing.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
That's true, that's true. Well, okay, Drew Carry was huge.
That was huge for you. But but no, here's what
I'm saying is is after I did let's say, Spin City,
I really would get people going, aren't you acting anymore?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah? It was.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
It's silly you Literally they go, I go, I am,
You're just not watching the channels I'm on and when
And I still get it and I just go, am
I not acting? I'm on everything all the time, on
everything now everything You're on, all the good things, the building. Correct,
(08:47):
You're always on John Mulaney, that John Mullaney all in.
Everybody's in LA. I'm all over the place. And somebody
will really ask me nowadays, aren't you acting anymore, and
I'm I'm mystified, Well, who is.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
This asshole that got to be? Many of those people
got his name.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I took his name and I found that and he
and I are having lunch and I'm going to go
through and we're going to go through my IMDb page.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
It's a funny thing because people people sometimes will get annoyed.
I've noticed that if they say to you, hey, where
do I know you from? And you're like, I don't
want to, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
That's the worst, you know what I but I now
have a thing. I say, uh, you know, I go,
what do you do for a liberty? He goes, I'm
a dentist. What was the name of the last person
he gave a crown to?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
That's what I give.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
That's what I say, or I'll just say they literally
me right now. They go, what do I know you're from?
And I go, everything, Just look up my IMDb page. Yeah,
well you are kind of in everything. I mean now
I'm in when I talked when I when you turned
up and only murders in the building, I thought, oh,
really really that, I mean, how how long did that take?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Two seasons?
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Well, here's the thing. Is that you know, people ask
why don't you want to murders in the building? I go,
because they haven't asked me.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
All they got to do.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Is ask me, So we have to three seasons they
asked me.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You're right. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
It's a funny thing, though, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Because I think fame and it's particularly proper actors like you,
who are like real actors who do it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
It's a thing, and it's a craft and.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
A job and an art that you really care about,
and fame almost seems like a like a byproduct, like
it's not. I don't think of you as someone who look,
maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think of you as
someone who who courted being famous. It's more about being
famous as a byproduct of what you do.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
And they don't know you.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
They know who you play, because who you play, you
play a very vary bunch of people.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah. I like to say that.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I do. When I was a kid and I lay
in bed dreaming of fame, and I did. I dreamt
of being an actor. I dreamt of being famous. When
I got angry at my parents and thought about running away.
My my note to my parents, I'll show you note
was I'm on the movie screen and I'm talking to them, going,
(11:19):
I'll show you you didn't let me go out and
me with my friends today, And I'll show you and
I you know you wanted to run away. This was
my my What do you say? What's the kind of
note you write when you're.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
My runaway note?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
My runaway note was a And so I did want
to be a star when I was younger, and then
I started acting, started having a career, and I realized
I want to be a good actor.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
And I'll tell you this too.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
As you probably know, because you know a lot of
people who have achieved great fame, fame is a prison.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Anybody who goes after fame is a fool.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Therefore, absolutely, how do you how do you convince a
young person that fame should not be your goal, not
only that, stay far away from it.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
You know why, if I could redo it, if I
could relive my life, I would try and find a
profession that had zero visibility, that had oh no no, oh,
Craig please, no no no, no, no, no no no why,
or a dry cleaner or a.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Hit man that I have to stay out of everybody's way, yes, no, no,
no ah, Look, I I do.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Like people coming up to me and saying they like me.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
With my ex wife, we would be walking down the
street and we'd be arguing and somebody would go, oh,
I love you, and I go, honey, please see so
ah it's I do like people coming up and saying
and giving me affirmation.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
It does make me happy.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
She used to say, how can you have a bad
day people come up to you like that? What are
you out of your mind? But I do happen to
like affirmation. I love applause. It's one reason why I
like theater. I like, you know, while you're on stage,
forget the applause. You can hear them listening. You can
(13:23):
hear them understanding what you're saying and connecting. And it's
not with sound. You just feel it. It's a wonderful feeling.
When I do single camera, I can't feel anything. They
yell cut and I go, was that any good? I
don't know. I want to hear. I want a symbiotic
(13:43):
relationship with the audience. You do it with your stand up.
You certainly did it on your talk. So yeah, But
I wonder if if that is that something that you're
lacking and not you Is that something that one is
lacking in passional relationships that you're looking for an app
animation a single person can give you.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I can't give you. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
There are other ways of finding satisfaction in the world
and people who, as you just said, if I could
sun the public life and find satisfaction that whole thing.
But I don't. I know my makeup is I like
this affirmation. It makes me happy. Applause. All that stuff
(14:26):
makes me happy. As I get older, Okay, I can
leave it all behind, but I still like it. I
still I don't the amounts that that bottomless hole of
affirmation has been filled up a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I'm okay.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I think that's quite interesting because also the idea of
I've talked to quite a few people, very successful people
like you, about ambition and what it looks like when
you're young, like my the ambition that that I felt
when I was young, and I've heard a lot of
people say had a sort of sort of and even
the runaway no story and how to kind of anger,
(15:11):
a kind of a kind of fucked you about it.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
And well that that that that that's what those famously
the comedians will say, I killed them, I slayed them.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I had them in the aisle.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
That's like, I need you, but I hate you, and
I because I hate needing you.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, I need them, I do. I still need them
as much as you did. Do you think.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
No, no, no, But when I act, I do. I
don't need them off stage as much. But when I'm acting, Yeah,
I need somebody to say that's great. I always say
I have an enormous ego and no confidence. Yeah I
need I need to be told you're doing good. I
(15:54):
also have a friend who did say, and I do
believe this. I may not always be great, but I
don't think I can suck anymore. Yeah, you know, I think.
I think, I think I got it. I made a
great and I yearned for great. I really do. Sure,
I really do. Uh and not for the fay but
(16:15):
the money or anything. I really want to do a
good job. Sure, I feel the same way. I never
began each stand up show by tailing the audience. How
long I've been doing it, a number of awards, and
you know a rough idea of how much money I've made,
and and that's so. So if the show sucks tonight,
it's not me, it's just not Oh that's funny. Well,
(16:36):
that's hilarious. I would never say that, but so so.
In other words, I've got it all. I've had my affirmation.
This is on you.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
It's so on you.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
This is let's see how you do. You paid your money.
I'm going to do my very best for you. But
if it's you don't like it, that's because you don't
like it than me. I'll do it. That's hilarious. I
think that's great. That's bad, fantastic.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Did you and I mean it too? Actually no, no,
I mean it sounds very I don't. I I do
not feel that way. There are nights that you're better
than other nights. You're just better, but you're not always
in charge of how the perception of that. Because I've
done this probably the night I came to see you,
(17:21):
and producers, you know that. You You you say to
an actor backstage or you've been on stage yourself, and
you tell them how great they were, and they'll say, oh, no,
you should have been here last night. Last night is
much better, and you've got to stop doing that.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You you do well.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I'll tell you why I have to stop doing that
is because then that person feels he's been seated m
hm and so it makes that person feel worse and
it and it's it may not be true about me.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
And the degree that you were better or worse is minuscule,
really miniscule. I could ask for another take, a second take,
and you put him side by side. You can't. You
can't tell the difference, right, you just you can't. A
(18:12):
good director can or sometimes do that. But most takes
they got it, you do have or it's or let
me put it this way, it's sufficient. Another take maybe
perfect and better. The other one was sufficient, But especially
(18:33):
if you're talking about a take, but directors looking at
and going that book behind Richard there, I don't.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Like that book there. Control of that. I have no
control of that.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I'm talking about whether or not I hooked in with
what is needed emotionally, what what I had in my eyes? Yeah,
stuff there, stuff like that that that nobody's diffident.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
What doesn't that?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Isn't that frustrating as an actor if you do a
very good take and you have lovely all the things
you want, and you rise and stuff, and then someone says,
that was great, but we heard that guy sneeze, Yeah,
let's do it again.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Kills me.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
That that that kills me because that moment in a bottle,
you know, to do to capture that that's precious and
you got it because there was a hair.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
In the lens, you know, and the lens or whatever
it is. You go, ah, why, I don't think that anymore.
I don't think you are.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I do know that Brando used to give his cinematographers
a bottle of champagne on the first day of the shooting,
and he would go up to him and say, if
it's not good, look at me, or if I think
it's not good, look at me, and the cameraman will
(19:53):
take the blame for.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
We got to do another. That's kind of clever. And
thought I thought that was very smart. You know what
to watch another?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, I remember watching a couple of very clever women actors.
We'vecome the actresses that I worked with over the years
who on the first day of shooting would go to
the DP. It was usually a man, and they would
flirt with the DP immediately. They would establish a relationship
with the DP, and I was like, what hell? And
(20:25):
I figured that the relationship over time. It was a
very kind of I have to look good and you
have to make me look good.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Times very interesting. There's more.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
The politics of a set are far more complex than
I think people understand, especially for things like the soundman
makes he says there's a bad noise and you know
we can't get around it, or the airplane or the
guy sneezes. Do you remember that time Christian Bale got
into trouble because there was a he was doing a
(20:55):
I think it was a mane.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Maybe, I think so.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I do remember, and he yelled that someone for screwing
up a take. And I remember because I was doing
late Night at the time, and I remember sticking up
for him. You ask a guy, You ask a guy
to go to the edge of what you can do,
to take himself to the edge of psychosis and let
it be recorded.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
And then you got upset with him.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
If he's upset while he's doing that, it seems ill
with you.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Standard I am with you now that now he got angry. Look,
I'm all for getting angry too. And yeah, and I'm
going to tell you something else. The guys who who
went to work for Scott Ruten, and Scott Ruten was
(21:43):
horrible to them and blah blah blah. Yeah, II go,
don't work for him. This is how he operates. Ye, what,
you're walking into a blind alley. No, it's it's like saying,
I heard them grenades go off, I saw the bombs.
I saw all the soulsers running. I said, you know what,
I'm going to go to the other side of the street.
(22:04):
Don't work for them a certain way.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
There's there's been quite a low on that recently. I
feel like the pendulum swinging the other way.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Don't worry. We got a president will take care of it.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Don't you that that won't shit? Oh please, it's all
going to be taken care of. Yes it is, Yes
it is. What about the what about the origins of it?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
For you? You don't come from a shoebiz family, do you? No,
not at all.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I think that the origins hold on. I gotta sneeze.
I didn't see that there ones of which, oh so
ones of which two acaus threes of disappointment.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
That's the rules of sneezing.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Oh no, oh god, well, no, wonder my life is
a disappointment.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Sneeze You always sneeze three times.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Always always needs three times. Really, that doesn't seem possible.
You can't always see three times. Craig I'm special. This
is what sets me apart.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Do you have the like specialities at the bottom of
your resume? Absolutely, you know, oh it's fight well, at
the bottom of my resume. I always say my specialties,
my biggest talent. Friends with George Clooney, that's my biggest talent.
That's my biggest Are you still friends with George Clinney?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but I don't like to talk
about it. He gets enough enough. No, I don't like
(23:36):
that do anything. But yeah, yeah, remember, of course I am.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
What I remember about Clooney is I'll talk about him
for a minute because when Clooney was doing er, I
was doing the Drew Carey Show, right.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
And the trailers were saying that Warner Brothers.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, he George would play basketball every day every day
and he would go over and play basketball.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
We'd come back and all the women hanging out with
trailers and watch him go play basketball. Cal that's funny.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
But he was and that's when his star was really
beginning to you know, TV doctor.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
And he was great, and he was always great and
he was.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
And I no, no, no, no, no, he was not always great.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
He was always great to us. He was always great. Person.
He was always great. He's always great.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Oh, since I know him, he was a great man,
a great level moral man.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, And and then that's what I mean. That's why
I don't judge anybody on the right. And I'm no judge.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
I don't know that if you judge George Clooney on
his uh, I'm the man you'll find no better.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
No, No, that's what That's what I always thought.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
He was like a really decent And I've never heard
a bad story about him either, which in Hollywood is
kind of like him and Henry Winkler.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
I think that's it. And Richard kind Have you heard
a bad story about me?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
No? I actually I haven't heard a bad the story
of it.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
I don't know bad stories about me. I can think
I feel bad about things, but I don't think people
have bad stories about me.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I find myself on it.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
But I feel guilty when I do do something wrong,
when when inside I know I've I've yelled at somebody
around nasty, but they don't know it.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
But I feel bad. I do well.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
I think that I think that you're allowed to be human.
I know is when I was doing the Late Night Show.
What I know is is because I met everybody. Everybody
like everybody comes through and.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
The mene to douchebag ratio was exactly the same as
any other walk in life.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I think that's true.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
You know, it's just that some people were great, some
people were assholes.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, actually I disagree with that.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
What One of the reasons why I think children should
not be actors, right, is because you are treating hid
differently by other people. On accountant does a good job,
you thank him. You know you have every profession, you
thank him. Thank you for doing a good job. Oh
(26:11):
my gosh, you went out of your way. You're fabulous
as a doctor. I owe you my life. Blah blah blah.
But an actor gets blind adoration, ad a ration, and
a child who goes to set, They all the adults
on set open doors for a kid. Can I get
(26:32):
you any water? They they cowtow to a child. They'll
open the door when a child should be opening a
door for an adult. And children should be beaten up
at school or should be you know, kept in their
place by their friends, and on set it's the opposite,
(26:59):
and they feel that they are elevated in the world.
I know this because I would come home and my
kids would go, Daddy, can he get me some water?
And I'm going, no, you get me water, but they don't.
I get my kids water.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
You know, it's funny. It's funny. I remember that.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
When I was doing Late Night, my kids were very young,
Like at the very beginning, I was still changing diapers,
so I would I'd be talking to these fabulously glamorous
people and then really within three or four minutes, I'd
be in my office changing a diaper and I can't
get absolutely wrestling.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Of the baby seat and going back home. Oh yeah,
my kids make fun of me. My dad.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
My son who's nineteen, literally will put his hands, going, Dad,
why do you talk? He's hilarious. I did what you're
talking about. I go, hey, I'm a national treasure, national treasure.
How dot like that? No, of course I'm not a
national I know that. And to them, I'm their dad,
(28:12):
Yes I'm not. You know, we have we have to
take stocking ourselves. But if you but an actor keeps
getting told oh you're wonderful, Oh I love you, Oh
you bring me such joy, They're going to go around
thinking that so that develops into a just it can
(28:33):
it can? It can if you yes, if you do
know so, the ratio is not the same.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
I think my feeling is it actually was, because first
of all, I didn't talk to a lot of kid
actors the well.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I what I did do?
Speaker 3 (28:49):
No, I'm talking about adult actors too. Well, an adult
actor isn't going to be lousy to you. He's about
to talk to you for twelve minutes. Why would they
be true?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
But everybody talks to each other, like the guy who's
like bringing them from the Lemmo end of the dressing room.
I know this guy. We talked to each other every day.
I say, what was he like? You go he was
a jerk or he was nice? I mean they they
they kind of.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah. It's a small Lettle ecosystem. So you get to
hear if.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Someone well also liberal in our politics, and liberality usually
means kindness. It means an openness to people. That's the liberal.
That's what liberality really means, is an openness. And I
think that actors are usually liberal in their politics and
liberal in their personalities and their acceptance of people. But
(29:41):
I will tell you this and who I'll be damned
if I can remember who it was. But I was
talking to a director who was an actor. First, Oh, god,
who was it?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Boy? I wish I could remember. Oh, I know who
it was. It was still close, old man and old man.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
He was on thirty something and I know him well
and he's married to Melissa Gilbert and I know him. Oh,
let's google it because he's a great he's a dear,
dear friend. But he was talking about he was in
on a meeting with like the producers and with the
uh uh some of the raters and everything, and go, well,
they're really nuts, and he goes, yeah, we tim Busfield,
(30:23):
stop it, stop looking, tim Busfield.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Tim Busfield, must it right now? And he goes, of
course they're nuts.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
You're asking them to bring up emotions in an unnatural
situation and to make pretend we're asking them to go
to the EDGs. We don't ask normal people to do that.
And not only that, we're asking them to do to
go to the edge and then do it again and
didn't do it again, and didn't do it again within
the same two or three hours.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You gotta be nuts. That is nuts.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
That's not how people are also nuts, Because do you
remember the scene in TUTSI where Dustin Hoffman is walking
down Fifth Avenue for the first time, Justice Tutzi and
you can see him out of the crowd. The crowd
is the world. The nut is who we're looking at.
(31:19):
That's not right. The normality is you should be the
guy over his left shoulder. That's normal. We're abnormal. In
front of a camera, two people making out telling each
other is such intimate things while behind the camera are
fifty people. Who does that? There's fifty people watching. We
(31:43):
don't see it with the audience. There's fifty to one
hundred people behind the camera, and you're acting like an
idiot in front.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Of the camera.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Well, then, in that sense, do you think is unrealistic
this kind of new thing? Because everybody asked I bet
you you get asked this all the time. If you
mentioned George Clonin, he's a perfect example of it.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Someone will say is he nice? Like what? All the time?
He's like everybody else. He'll be nice.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Sometimes he'll be a jerker, other times he'll get you'll
get sad. But this whole idea, like if you if
you meet Lemmy from Motorhead, people will say, was he nice?
Speaker 3 (32:17):
You go, I don't need him to be nice. He's
Lemmy I don't need him to be nice, like Mick Jagger.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Is he nice? I don't care. I don't care if
he's nice.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
But niceness seems to be, you know, the single most
valuable commodity, and I think it is because it's amplified
now because of the ersatz fame that comes with social media,
so that that kind of they're like famous for being
exactly who you are, which I think it's I think
(32:47):
it's been that way since uh uh with the other
newspapers that not the National guy.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
But but you know, Hollywood and stuff. You know, in
the thirties when you learned about Jersey as stars. This
was a way of making of selling movies and a
way of selling movies stars, Hollywood confidential stuff like that,
which have gone on and on and today are you
(33:14):
know entertainment tonight. We want to get closer to these people.
Oh why used to joke that when people saw George
they wouldn't get They want to go up and maybe
he'll rub off on me. They get to me, they go, oh,
you know what, not too close in case it rubs off.
(33:37):
But people want to know these people because it's somehow
it gives them importance, important They met this person. They
I mean, that's Steve Martin's card. It gives Hewy hands
out cards. I met Steve Martin. I had an experience
or I had a personal experience with Steve Martin. He
doesn't sign autographs is when he gives away we do
(34:01):
want that.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
I like it.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
I love my kids. I brag about who I saw
that day. Today I was with Fred Armison, who I adore,
who I love to love him I admire. I'm going
to be working with him in a month. I love
Fred Armison. I'm going to tell my kids they did.
My kids are so tired of hearing me justify my
(34:24):
importance by who I saw that day.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
They are so tired of it, so you can't.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I was trying to actually get back to them when
you were a kid though. I wanted to get the
impulse and what makes the journey from a very like
that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
My grandparents, as I mentioned earlier, I came to New York.
My grandparents took me to place all the time. They
I was well educated in the arts. Oh, my daughter
is calling in now from Spain, and you know what
I mean. No, I'm talking to Craig ferguson Talk to her, Ah,
(35:04):
it's calling from Madrid. I want to come back. As
as Richard Kinines's children, they got it great. Oh yeah,
my kids too. She's on a semester abroad and she's
having a great time. So they took me to Broadway shows.
They took me to Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concert. I
(35:24):
had a magnificent upbringing. As far as culture, I think
that's why I'm who I am today. And I emulated
at the time Robert Preston, Zero Mustelle. These were heroes
to me. I loved them. And then during school I
did all the plays and I was the star. You know,
(35:44):
I was good. I had a modicum of talent. I
became much better within the past twenty years, but I
had talent when I was a kid. My mom used
to She didn't read that stuff, but she loved saying
who she liked, or who she may have met, stuff
(36:07):
like that, or who she went to college with, which
at the time were so on high.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
And I look back and I go, really, you're bragging
about him.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
But so and so went on a cruise and they met,
believe it or not, Jerry Paris.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
I'll always remember that. The Alberts were on a cruise
and met Jerry Paris and remained friends with him. What
but I was struck by that.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Then I grad I graduated from Northwestern, supposed to be
a lawyer and go to business school and go into
my dad's business. And my dad's best friend. I tell
the story all the time, where it was Sunday afternoon
watching football, and he said, you should try New York
(36:54):
and give it a go, because when you're forty, you're
going to resent your wife, You're going to resent your
children that you did not give it a go, that
you're still at the jewelry store selling, you know, being
a businessman. You could have been an actor. So I
did it, and I had talent. One year turned into
two and three, and by the age of twenty nine
(37:15):
point thirty, you should be going I don't like this
life of suffering and I should be getting more work
and people aren't appreciating me. That's when I went into
Second City. So for four years I was acting every night,
and I became better, and so I had no chance
(37:35):
to leave.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
That year.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Between twenty eight twenty nine and thirty three thirty four,
I was taken care of. I was making a living
in Chicago. I was famous. I was successful. I was
downright successful. There were six people in the world who
made a really good living acting or doing improvs and
(37:59):
it was it was that second city, and I was
one of the six.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
But a blessing that is a metal.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
It's very interesting in that time period you talk about, though,
because that's my experience as well. It's like I had
done stand up. I was doing stand up. I didn't
feel like I was getting anywhere with it. And round
about twenty nine I was like, actually, that's when.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I go sober as well. I was like, I don't
know about any of this.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
And in a very short space of time between twenty
nine and thirty two, I went from falling down drunk
in the street to a regular cast member on The
Drew Carey Show in Los Angeles. From Glasgow to Los
Angeles in that very short space of time.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
And I can tell how it happened.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Yeah, you know, I know, But it's at that age
and if you don't hit it, you could become an agent,
a writer, a producer. There's a what's his name, Danny
Jacobson who created spin City and ran spin City I'm sorry,
(39:11):
who created a man about you he was. He was
a handsome stud of a guy. He was in Greece
on Broadway and around that time after Greece and nothing happened,
and that's when he became a comedy writer. Went to work.
I was in and then became a really great comedy writer.
(39:32):
You and I know, if you can do anything other
than that, do it, anything anything other than that, do
it for many reasons. Number one, you're never gonna give
a perfect performance. And give a good performance, you'll never
be perfect. You can always be better. But you'd be
a good writer. You can be great.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
So he was lucky.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
He became a writer, producer and made a gazillion dollars.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
He's much wealthier than me. He was a on a
successful TV show. He made millions. I am a thousand there.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Successful act But your daughter's calling you from a said
master abroad in Spain.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Right, you know I'm one of the lucky ones. I
guess there are ten movie stars.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
What are there?
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Two hundred and fifty really big actors who make a decent, decent,
good what a good businessman would make. Yeah, two hundred
and fifty. Maybe there's four hundred. Yeah, maybe I don't know.
So it's very mercurial. It's very it comes and it goes.
I mean there are and sometimes that you're talking about recently,
(40:43):
you do seem.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
To be everywhere right now is interesting, But I've seen
there have been parts of your career.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
If I use to look at your career, there have
been moments in your career where you were everywhere. Like
if I think of you late, I think it's maybe
the late nineties, only two thousands, or maybe it's a
bit later than that, you were everywhere.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Then I remember you being everywhere.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Craig, I'm the lucky guy. I've worked consistently. You haven't
always seen me, but I've been doing shows. You do
a TV show, millions watching you do a show nine
hundred to twelve hundred people are watching you, or you're
doing a show for ninety people or three hundred.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
It doesn't matter. I'm always working.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
I'm not always making a lot of money, and not
a lot of people are seeing me, and I'm not
famous during those years when everybody's going, aren't you acting anymore?
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I'm always acting. I always am acting. I just am.
Are you are your kids drunk to you? I'm a
good father.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Congratulation No, No, I know no, but I kid, come,
I go. My kids were blessed with no talent, so
I got I'm very lucky. They don't like that joke.
But it's the truth. That's interesting. That's interesting. It's a
funny thing, though, would because I remember working with kid
(42:02):
actors in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
I didn't like working with them mine. I didn't like
being a red cand actors.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
I remember saying to the they would always say to
the parents, why do you let your kid be an
actor in Hollywood?
Speaker 1 (42:11):
And what did they say? They always say the same thing.
They always say they want to do it. They want
to do it, And I'm.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Like, that's not a reason to let a kid do
a thing because they want to do it.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
That's the opposite. My kids want to eat skintles for breakfast.
They say the same thing. You think my kids want
to eat vegetables. They'd rather have cotton candy. It's it's
they don't they don't know what the hell they want.
They want to do it.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Now, there's a couple of things as you bring that
in about child actors. I don't like child actors. I
don't I liked Fred Savage. I worked with Fred Savage.
He was one of the kid, And of course you
come across a couple, I instantly.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Don't like the parents. Instantly, that's on me.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
They may be great people, but I instantly don't like
the parents. And I'll tell you something else. I had
a therapist whose daughter said she wanted to be an actress.
Hell oh, letter, letter, don't let her get money the
minute money comes into it, all of a sudden, there
are consequences and there's competition in ways that are not healthy.
(43:26):
Let her do community theater, go do school plays. Let
her put on plays, pay for them.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Do what.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Let her act that she wants that. Let her act.
She wants to be famous, she wants to be on TV.
That's what she wants.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Well, that's that's what I think, because nowadays, I always
thought doing stand up comedy for me was kind of
like being a job, like a realtor.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
No one grows up wanting to be a realtor, but
it's a pretty good job. It's other things don't work out.
But no, you get people who want to be stand
up comedians. I like, I don't think.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
I think, yeah, eight year old's, ten year olds, I
think they want to be stand ups.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I think he's crazy. I don't necessarily agree with you.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
I understand that that's how you felt, but I believe
they do. Jeff Garland tells the story that his parents
took him at like an age ten to see Jimmy Duranty.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
And the ride home he says, does he get paid
for that? And they go yeah, he goes, that's what
I want to do.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
That's very interesting. Yeah, yeah, I know my experience with
that at all.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
I did not want to be Zero my I didn't.
I loved Zero Mysel, I loved Robert Presiding. They affected me.
But when I got to be seventeen eighteen, I wanted
to do what they did. You know. I always wanted
to be an actor, but I always wanted to be
Look how many kids want to be a baseball player.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
How many kids want to be a fireman? You know?
Speaker 3 (45:03):
And I say in my when I used to lie
in bed when I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old,
you know, kids want to dream of being center fielder
for the for the Yankees. I dreamt of being in
a Stanley Kubrick movie, in an original uh Stephen Sondheim,
how Prince musical, and a Woody Allen movie. That's what
I dreamt about. That's what happened to have you. Okay,
(45:26):
here's what it is. My joke is I I was
in an original Stephen Sondheim how Prince musical. I was
the lead Delete me who sings the way that I
said I could sing, not sing Sondheime, But I did
(45:47):
so I did that. I was never in a Woody
Allen movie, and even after Stanley Kubrick died, I thought
I'd have a better chance of being in a Stanley
Kubrick movie than a Woody Allen movie. And then finally,
Woody Allen did put me in a movie. You never
heard of it.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, It's called Rifkin's Festival, and it was it was fun.
It was fun. Nobody saw it. You know.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
It's now it's now during his uh uh you know
me too, a series of movies.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
But that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Yeah, that's interesting. Did you grow? Did you become friends
with him?
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Is he? Is he a friend? I can't sell.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
I can't say I was friends with him, But whenever
I saw him, he knew who I was because I
had auditioned for him a few times. And he's very,
uh shockingly popular culture savvy, he watches a lot of TV.
He knows a lot of stuff. Look, anybody who saw
a serious man, anybody who's doing saw a serious man.
You know that he saw a serious man. And I
(46:48):
think he liked me. Uh, and then he cast me.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
He can't good?
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Yeah, it was good. I had a great time. And
in fact, there was one moment. It was a dinner scene.
A lot of the people in the cast a very
small part, but I remember certain things. I remember specifically.
So at one point I was doing the my my
lines and I was doing that and he says, that's great, Richard,
(47:13):
that's great. Don't hit the joke. I knew exactly what
he was or, don't hit the line. I knew exactly
what he was talking about exactly, and.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
He was right. I hit. I hit the joke.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
And that's explain hitting the joke to me? What does
that mean? If I like you? You you played it
like it was a joke rather than a piece of.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Let's say, boy, it was a funny line that should
have been conversational, and I knew it was funny.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
I hit the funny. Let the let the funny sit.
He was right, and I can and I cringe.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
To this day.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
For having made that choice, I knew exactly what he
was talking about, exactly exactly. In the old days, I
wouldn't have been able to know. I knew exactly what
he's talking about. The other thing is is I was
doing the scene. I was saying the lines, and he
came out of the uh uh you know, the village
video village from a tent, and he was laughing and
(48:15):
he was happy. He says, good job, and then he
went back and everybody looked at me, and he goes.
He never does that. He never comes out and says
that was good or we're laughing, said it was good,
said it was good, See it was good. See.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
You're different to me, because if he had done that
to me, I think, I don't thought I'm going to
get fired. If he never does that and he's done it,
I'm going to get I'm going to get fired.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
That's what it is. I have it. I think I
have a restrust Craig. I was good. I knew I
was not good. That was good. No, no, no, I
knew that at that particular moment. I knew I was good.
I knew it was good. Yeah, I know, well you
are good.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
I know what stuff is good? Sometimes I still have
to hear it. I still have to hear it. How
was that do? Is that what you wanted? Sometimes when
i'm really path really pathetic, I'll say, when I know
it's good, I'll go to the director, go is that good?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
That's pathetic to me? And I know it it's horrible.
I don't think so horrible. I don't think so horrible.
I tell you what I think.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
I remember once having there was a bunch of musicians
I was doing. I had been directing a movie and
I there was a score the London Philarmonic and Abbey
Roads Studios and they were doing the score for the
movie and the conductor was conducting them in the worl grape.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
I was the director of a movie. What the big movie?
But they but we got the.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Orchestra cheat And I went out to the London Fello
after they were finished, and I stood up with the conductor,
uh stands and I said, I know you're all professional musicians.
I know that you do this day in and day out,
and that it's not romantic to you. But I have
to tell you what you people do is otherworldly, and
(49:54):
I cannot be express how much gratitude I feel for you,
your skill and your talent and being here today. I mean,
you got paid. But I just can't do. And I
could tell because I know people, I've worked with people.
I could tell by being honestly enthusiastic and grateful for
(50:15):
what they've done.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
That.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Who doesn't love hearing that? Who doesn't love a boy
a pat in the back and say you're great?
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Thank you? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (50:26):
Oh, I absolutely, Oh, I think that. I think that's
I didn't know where your story was going, But I
think I think I do that a lot. I think
I tell people my gratitude, my appreciations for what they do,
absolutely all the time. Absolutely, I do see and.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
I don't see.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
What I mean is I don't see anything pathetic about
wanting not for yourself.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
I think that I agree.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
Yeah, what was pathetic is that I knew I was
good and still know what. I still went fishing, still
still went fishing for the compliment.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Oh no, no, no, I can fish anyway. You are wonderful.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
I remained the enormous fan of your work, and because
you were always really kind to me when I was
on your show.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
That was on your show about three times, and.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
What time I think I did a bit for you. Yeah,
and yeah, you're always great. Your comedy was great. You
are uh there's you're not snarky, you you you're you know.
It's I think you want. I think you can. I
think you know snarky. I think you know the area
code of it all. And you can be not sarcastic,
but you can be you can poke fun but never meanly.
(51:48):
I say, I think the world of your comedy. Thought,
I thought you were great, certainly great, and thanks and
thank you for sort of introducing me to my wife
sort of. Oh no, no, no, I'm taking full responsibility.
I deserve to have a Christmas or ornament on your tree.
I deserve a Christmas you know what it's gonna happen.
(52:10):
It's gonna I'm gonna have hope so constructed for this year.
Thank you for your enjoy.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
However, it will be round, so don't make my face
too fat.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
I'm kidding, Okay, it would be appropriately jolly for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (52:23):
Fine, okay, Craig. I what a pleasure to talk to you.
It's very nice.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
It's a joy for me. Thank you, Rachel, thank you
so much. You bet
Host
Craig Ferguson
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