Speaker 1: The executive producer is Papa that week? And you want
Speaker 1: to say, how am I doing? Am I doing this correctly?
Speaker 1: Am I am by doing what you want? Are you happy?
Speaker 1: Are you happy that you hired me? That's really important
Speaker 1: to me, And you would figure why would that be
Speaker 1: important to you? Look at your career, look at all
Speaker 1: you've done. No, no, no, no no. I still need
Speaker 1: affirmation from Daddy. Tell me I'm good. Tell me I'm good.
Speaker 1: And I don't want the audience to tell me I'm good.
Speaker 1: I want you, the writer, the creator, to tell me
Speaker 1: this is what I wrote. I wrote a double. I
Speaker 1: think you hit a triple. You may have even hit
Speaker 1: a home run. Yeah. That that's what I want every
Speaker 1: time I work, That's what I want. So that's what
Speaker 1: I do. Hi, my name is Richard Kind, and I
Speaker 1: get to talk all about me for the next hour.
Speaker 1: Howdy folks, and welcome to another episode of Off the Beat.
Speaker 1: As always, it's me. It's Brian baum Gartner as you.
Speaker 1: Just if you don't recognize that voice, I don't know
Speaker 1: where you've been for the last fifty years. The incredible
Speaker 1: Richard Kind is the man you just heard from. Look,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you I am more than kind of
Speaker 1: excited to share our conversation today. Get it. No, that
Speaker 1: was bad, but it's true. It's incredible. He has been
Speaker 1: in more movies and TV shows than I can count,
Speaker 1: but luckily I don't have to. I am dB says
Speaker 1: that he has worked on or is working on, two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy two projects. Now that's not individual episodes,
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy two unique projects. That is insane.
Speaker 1: You may know him as cousin Andy on Curb Your Enthusiasm,
Speaker 1: or perhaps Paul Lasseter in Spin City, or maybe you're
Speaker 1: most familiar with him from the numerous Pixar movies he's
Speaker 1: been involved in Toy Story three, or his work as
Speaker 1: Bing Bong on Inside Out or Mold on A Bug's Life,
Speaker 1: or maybe you're more in two shows about pubescent teens. Well,
Speaker 1: if so, Richard plays Marty in Big Mouth. Yes, the
Speaker 1: man has range. I'm excited to dive into some of
Speaker 1: his projects. Yes, But also I was so interested in
Speaker 1: talking to Richard about what it's like being a working
Speaker 1: actor for all of these years. I can't tell you
Speaker 1: what this conversation meant to me. I learned so much today.
Speaker 1: I hope you have fun and maybe learn a little
Speaker 1: bit too. So it is my absolute pleasure to bring
Speaker 1: on Richards so you can hear straight from the horse's
Speaker 1: mouth because yeah, Richards played a horse too. No he hasn't.
Speaker 1: That was a joke. Areas Richard kind Bubble and Squeak.
Speaker 1: I love it Bubble and Squeak on Bubble and Squeaker
Speaker 1: cook at every moment, lift over from the night before.
Speaker 1: Ye hey, buddy, I can't see you yet. Oh you
Speaker 1: can't see me. Now I can see you. I think
Speaker 1: this is much better. This is much better. Thank you
Speaker 1: for taking the time to talk to me. You know
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan. Thank you. I am a huge
Speaker 1: fan of yours, which is why I'm doing this even
Speaker 1: though it forever to get us organized. Who have you
Speaker 1: had on the show and what makes you a good podcaster? Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a great question starting off with the questions from you. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm great or not, but look,
Speaker 1: here's what I find interesting is what I who. I
Speaker 1: want to talk to our people that one I maybe
Speaker 1: don't know too well, Guys like you that I admire
Speaker 1: but we've met, and guys that I've worked with that
Speaker 1: we don't. You know, you're on set. You don't sit
Speaker 1: there and talk so much about history or moments that
Speaker 1: helped them. So who have I had? Um, Jon Hamm,
Speaker 1: Eric stone Street? Who did we just have? Eric McCormack,
Speaker 1: and Bellamy Young and Kevin Pollock? I know, old buddy
Speaker 1: of yours. One of those people you mentioned are friends
Speaker 1: of mine. Yeah, yeah, Soul, It's been a variety of conversations.
Speaker 1: That's great, great, great great, Yeah. Yeah, uh. I want
Speaker 1: to go back with you for a little bit. You
Speaker 1: grew up in in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. What is the
Speaker 1: best way to describe Bucks County for people who have
Speaker 1: never been there? Okay, it's it's first of all, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's bottom line. Bucks County is across the river from
Speaker 1: New Jersey, from New Jersey. My dad's store was in Princeton,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. I was born and up until fourth grade
Speaker 1: lived in Trenton. Then we moved across the street to
Speaker 1: the Tonier area, and Trenton was beginning to change, so
Speaker 1: we moved to Bucks County. Yardly. At the time, you
Speaker 1: had a steel mill in Fairless Hills, you had rolling
Speaker 1: farmland all over. It gets it abuts Amish country, and
Speaker 1: it's about fifty minutes from Philadelphia. It is bucolic and beautiful,
Speaker 1: and it is surrounded by two large cities, New York
Speaker 1: and Philadelphia. I'm about an hour by training. You're about
Speaker 1: an hour and ten minutes from New York hour and
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. And that's where people went to work, or
Speaker 1: they went to work in Philly, or they worked in
Speaker 1: the area. Right. Your dad was a jeweler, I understand.
Speaker 1: Here's a better way to describe it. My dad had
Speaker 1: a jewelry store, and his competition was Tiffany and Cardier.
Speaker 1: Because people in Princeton were very educated, very wealthy, and
Speaker 1: they either went to New York to buy all their
Speaker 1: gems and their jewelry and the watches and everything, or
Speaker 1: they went to my dad. Believe it or not, my
Speaker 1: dad's suppliers were the same people who supplied Tiffany and Cardier,
Speaker 1: the same jewelry makers. However, Tiffany and Cardier can get
Speaker 1: necklaces that are five thousand dollars and have about eight
Speaker 1: of them in the window. My dad couldn't. But if
Speaker 1: you needed one of those necklaces, he would get six
Speaker 1: of them in He would show them to you, and
Speaker 1: then the one that you wanted you bought, and if
Speaker 1: you didn't like any of them, he gets six more in.
Speaker 1: But you didn't have to sleep into the city where
Speaker 1: you were nobody, or you could go to my dad,
Speaker 1: who would take care of you very specifically. He knew
Speaker 1: you well, he knew your family, he knew the taste
Speaker 1: of the wife and the kids. And so it was
Speaker 1: a very personalized, beautiful jewelry store. And I understand this
Speaker 1: was going to be your business. This was you were
Speaker 1: you were going to take up the family business. It
Speaker 1: was so when I say my dad wasn't a jeweler,
Speaker 1: although he knew gemology really well. Uh, he could do
Speaker 1: everything that a jeweler could. That is not what he did.
Speaker 1: My dad could sell ice to the Eskimos. He was
Speaker 1: a great and charming salesman. He was the only Jew
Speaker 1: in a very very waspy New Jersey Town, Princeton. The
Speaker 1: rest of his life was spent with Jewish friends at
Speaker 1: the club and things like that, but his work was
Speaker 1: in Princeton. And although he may have been looked at
Speaker 1: as a Jew, I don't he was known like that.
Speaker 1: He was he was revered in Princeton. He was on
Speaker 1: the board of the bank, on the board of the theater,
Speaker 1: and in the town council, everything like that. So I
Speaker 1: don't believe that there was any prejudice at all in
Speaker 1: that way. He wasn't the Jewish guy in a waspy town,
Speaker 1: but he had to know that he was. And all
Speaker 1: of his friends were either you know from the temple,
Speaker 1: you know from the neighborhood where he was when he
Speaker 1: wasn't working. Yeah, and you thought you would take this
Speaker 1: business over, miner My understanding was you went to Northwestern
Speaker 1: to study law pre law and take over the business. Right.
Speaker 1: My dad did not want me to go into the
Speaker 1: business unless I got a law degree and a business
Speaker 1: degree because he always felt that the store could have
Speaker 1: been large when he should have made it bigger, had
Speaker 1: a couple of stores he didn't need to, but that's all.
Speaker 1: That's what he thought I should do and expand the business.
Speaker 1: I would not. I am not business minded, However, I'm
Speaker 1: a nice guy. My dad taught me two things. Number One,
Speaker 1: you never buy jewelry for a sad occasion. You always
Speaker 1: it's always happy. It's a very positive business. And the
Speaker 1: second thing is is if you believe in a product.
Speaker 1: I can sell anything if I believe in a product.
Speaker 1: And my dad's stuff was not just the best, it
Speaker 1: was so overpriced. He charged so much, but he would
Speaker 1: guarantee that what you were getting was the best quality
Speaker 1: and he would stand behind it and nobody it was
Speaker 1: worth the money that you were paying, getting the best
Speaker 1: that that money could buy. And he that's what he
Speaker 1: would bring in. And he would never dicker or haggle
Speaker 1: for a price or anything like that. You know, they
Speaker 1: charged a thousand hollars, said well, i'll give you a
Speaker 1: seven fifty. He wouldn't do that. He would say, no,
Speaker 1: that's not what we do. So he really taught me
Speaker 1: how to be classy. I'm not saying he was a
Speaker 1: classy guy, but when it came to that, he was
Speaker 1: classy who he was, right? Did you do any performing
Speaker 1: as a kid? Only in school? I the only thing,
Speaker 1: the only reason I wanted to be an actor was
Speaker 1: my grandparents used to take me to theater in New York,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to be an actor. But you know,
Speaker 1: kids want to be baseball players and kids want to
Speaker 1: be fireman and the thought of me being an actor,
Speaker 1: it was it was a pipe dream. It was. It
Speaker 1: was stupid. The thing is, I kept doing school plays
Speaker 1: and I was always the best. So I guess, if
Speaker 1: you're the best football player, are you really going to
Speaker 1: try and be a pro. Yeah, you may have aspirations,
Speaker 1: but no, if you're a high school football player in
Speaker 1: one in one hand, you can count the number of
Speaker 1: people you know who go on the professional sports an actor,
Speaker 1: I guess you don't have to have such such restrictions.
Speaker 1: So I got, okay, Yeah, I'm going to be an actor.
Speaker 1: I kept being the best. I did a thing called forensics,
Speaker 1: so I I won the national championship in oral and
Speaker 1: turp and dramatic and turp and and I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to be an active And I
Speaker 1: went to Northwestern, where I did what I love to do.
Speaker 1: But I got an education, and that's what Northwestern did.
Speaker 1: Are these answers way too long? No? No kidding me.
Speaker 1: You'll cut when I go on too much about myself. No,
Speaker 1: you're no, that's it's it is about you. But I'm
Speaker 1: fascinating with the moment that you know. It sounds like you, well,
Speaker 1: you loved your dad. I presume you respected the hell
Speaker 1: out of your dad. And what in the business he was.
Speaker 1: He was building. And you go to Northwestern and you're
Speaker 1: on this path, at what is the moment that you
Speaker 1: decide the path is going to change? I mean, I
Speaker 1: know you end up going to Second City, right. It
Speaker 1: was all one thing. There was a guy who I'm
Speaker 1: actually going to see next week. I hope he's in
Speaker 1: his nineties. He they lived next door to us. He
Speaker 1: was my parents best friend. And we're watching football and
Speaker 1: I was supposed to go to law school and my
Speaker 1: dad's best friend, Steve Holsman said these were exact words.
Speaker 1: Try acting, because when you're forty, you're gonna resent your wife,
Speaker 1: you're gonna resent your kids that you never tried. It
Speaker 1: a dream deferred. It's the worst Go try it. It
Speaker 1: works out great. If it doesn't work out, you got
Speaker 1: the store. I was twenty one year old kid twenty
Speaker 1: at the time, so what the hell? And I say
Speaker 1: this if I ever give lectures or something. First of all,
Speaker 1: I had nobody to answer to but myself. Second thing
Speaker 1: is dare to fail. And I think that's a really
Speaker 1: important thing. As you really go through life, failure can
Speaker 1: be looked on as a good thing. You you know
Speaker 1: that that didn't happen. So what else can I do
Speaker 1: that might make me make me successful? And who the
Speaker 1: hell knows I might be successful? So I went out
Speaker 1: and I tried it, and for a while did I fail?
Speaker 1: Let me, I'll tell you the worst. And you, being
Speaker 1: a character actor, I don't know whether or not you
Speaker 1: had to deal with this in your youth, but we're
Speaker 1: not the best looking men that walked the planet. I
Speaker 1: couldn't get an acting job. And what was worse is
Speaker 1: I couldn't get a waiter's job. They wanted a better
Speaker 1: looking person. And I'm going, oh my god, so that
Speaker 1: if I can't get work as an actor, I can't work,
Speaker 1: get work serving food. Well, of course eventually I did,
Speaker 1: and of course eventually I do. And when I said
Speaker 1: get work as an actor, I I did stuff. I
Speaker 1: did the class this, and I did off Broadway plays.
Speaker 1: But the journey at this, I'm shore, you know, to
Speaker 1: the journey is a great time. After you've done the journey.
Speaker 1: You're right, Sometimes that journey is just dreadful, But you know,
Speaker 1: you go when you do an off Broadway play is horrible,
Speaker 1: but you go out afterwards and you get drunk and
Speaker 1: maybe you meet a girl who you get laid and
Speaker 1: you're you're doing that stuff and you can stay out
Speaker 1: till four in the morning because you've got nobody to
Speaker 1: answer to. And you realize I remember doing that play,
Speaker 1: and I don't know whether I was good man or different,
Speaker 1: but I did it, and that's fun. I think that's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. So you you were focused in
Speaker 1: New York. What made you decide to go to Harvard
Speaker 1: or the Harvard of Theater of Okay, when I look
Speaker 1: back at it, and I'm not looking at it, I
Speaker 1: think that's the first time I've ever said this out loud.
Speaker 1: I did everything. It's not my plan. In increments of
Speaker 1: four I went to high school ninth grade through twelfth
Speaker 1: grade for four years. I went to Northwestern for four years.
Speaker 1: I was in New York for four years. I went
Speaker 1: to Chicago for four years. Then I went to l
Speaker 1: A for a long while. As it happened, I then
Speaker 1: went back to New York for Spin City for four years.
Speaker 1: Which it's just weird that none of this was in
Speaker 1: my head. So I'm in New York waiting tables, taking classes,
Speaker 1: doing off off roadway stuff. I did a children's theater
Speaker 1: that was also for adults. I wouldn't pay money for it.
Speaker 1: But it was like if if they had a theater
Speaker 1: subscription series, one week would be Doc Severanston's band. They
Speaker 1: might have Tony Bennett come wing. Well, one Saturday they'd
Speaker 1: have Daniel Boone. That was That was a show, but
Speaker 1: it was very, very good, A very very reputable theater
Speaker 1: company called Performing Arts Repertory Theater. But we did it
Speaker 1: primarily for kids in second grade through high school. That's
Speaker 1: something I did from January till May. During that time,
Speaker 1: Julia Louie Dreyfuss, Brad Hall, Gary Kroeger, and a guy
Speaker 1: named Rush Pearson and Paul Barross all started a group
Speaker 1: called the Practical Theater Company in Chicago. It's an improvisational
Speaker 1: theater company in Chicago was the hub of improv. They
Speaker 1: were really good, really really good. And when I guess
Speaker 1: I think it was Lauren Michaels was looking for four
Speaker 1: additional people. They asked Bernie Sillons, the owner of Second City,
Speaker 1: do you have anybody? And he this is horrible thing
Speaker 1: that he did. Rather than show his people, who were
Speaker 1: very good but they had just opened a show, he
Speaker 1: told them to go back to the other space. And said,
Speaker 1: these guys are good and they all got taken Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Live. So I had gone to school with those people.
Speaker 1: I had gone to Northwestern. While they were on Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Live, they said, why don't you go to Chicago
Speaker 1: and open a play a play at our theater. And
Speaker 1: so I went with my best friend who we also
Speaker 1: went to Northwestern, and we opened a play that was
Speaker 1: really really successful there. It was really good. The owner
Speaker 1: of Second City saw us and he said, uh, I
Speaker 1: want you to be He asked me and my best
Speaker 1: friend if we wanted to be in Second City. Of course,
Speaker 1: oh my god, going to be in Second City. And
Speaker 1: so I spent four years in Second City and that's
Speaker 1: what I did. So that's how I got to Second City.
Speaker 1: Actually it overlapped. I did about six months of doing
Speaker 1: that play along with doing Second City. We would do
Speaker 1: the show first at the small little space, then I'd
Speaker 1: run next door into Second City, which was so on
Speaker 1: a Saturday night, I was working from seven at night
Speaker 1: until to thirty in the morning, taking or two in
Speaker 1: the morning, with one hour break from from ten to eleven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty great. Prior to this time, would you say you
Speaker 1: were mainly focused in your acting on comedy or yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just yeah, I was an actor, and I've always always,
Speaker 1: always considered myself an actor. Yeah, it's it's what I do.
Speaker 1: And I do not consider myself a comedian at all.
Speaker 1: And I don't consider myself a comic actor because if
Speaker 1: I'm doing a serious play, what the hell do you
Speaker 1: want a comic actor for. I can do comedy. I
Speaker 1: can do comic parts, and I can give humanity to
Speaker 1: a serious part so that he could be that much
Speaker 1: more rounded, because if you just go on and just
Speaker 1: be an ogre, I mean, Alan Rickman was the best
Speaker 1: at that horrible villain, always funny. Yeah, you always lent
Speaker 1: humor to it, so that that that's what I did.
Speaker 1: But I can't say that I did. The only reason
Speaker 1: I did Second City because they asked me. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody asked, you know, how did you get that part?
Speaker 1: Why did you take that role? Because they asked me,
Speaker 1: do you want to do it? I said, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: all I do. Had Caazario always says, have you ever
Speaker 1: heard the word no? You know, there's a reason I
Speaker 1: work so much is because I don't turn work down.
Speaker 1: I take it off of an Indian? Do you do
Speaker 1: you see, I don't know about that. Do you think
Speaker 1: that Second City helped you later on as you became
Speaker 1: more known in the comedy space. I mean, is there
Speaker 1: a correlation there? All right, let let me tell you
Speaker 1: something that I did a lot of times. All of
Speaker 1: these things were just mistakes because I didn't know what
Speaker 1: else to do. But this was a conscious decision. It
Speaker 1: took me forever to leave Second City. I was really scared.
Speaker 1: I had a great security in Chicago and friends on
Speaker 1: stage every night. I got a paycheck every week. It's
Speaker 1: not large, but it's a paycheck. I'm a working actor,
Speaker 1: and that's bottom line. Is the goal for us all
Speaker 1: Let's live well and do what we love as often
Speaker 1: as we can. This is the best life in the world.
Speaker 1: I gave my notice in February, went out there around
Speaker 1: September October. My first thought, my first thing that I got,
Speaker 1: and I got. I got worked pretty soon. I did
Speaker 1: not want to do a comedy. I didn't want because
Speaker 1: if if I've got a Second City on my resume
Speaker 1: and I was was I known now? But maybe word
Speaker 1: got out that I was Second City and I was
Speaker 1: doing I did a Stephen Cattle awful, awful, hard hitting
Speaker 1: police drama. We it was a very gruesome show. And
Speaker 1: I will tell you this a side note. It was
Speaker 1: the first procedural done on TV. Wow, I know it's
Speaker 1: called unsub and you're gonna go what I called it?
Speaker 1: One subwhat unsub? Unsub was short for unknown subject and
Speaker 1: that's what the FBI division who chase serial killers would
Speaker 1: call the thing. And there the un subject. I've been
Speaker 1: an unsub. I did criminal minds, so I procedurals. We
Speaker 1: were criminal minds in Okay before any of it happened.
Speaker 1: And whenever I see Peter Roth, who just left the
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers but he used to run cattle, and whenever
Speaker 1: I see him, you know, he hugs you and he goes.
Speaker 1: We were the first, and we were we But but
Speaker 1: when I tell you, well, you know how how gruesome
Speaker 1: criminal minds can be. Yes, imagine no precedent having ever
Speaker 1: been sent spent. There was no precedent. So the first
Speaker 1: episode was a great actor named Paul Gilfoil. You know Paul.
Speaker 1: You look him up and you'll know exactly what. Paul
Speaker 1: Gilfoil was a serial killer. He was a cobbler and
Speaker 1: he used to put razor blades in the heels of
Speaker 1: women's shoes, so when they would try them on, they'd
Speaker 1: bend over in pain and he would stab them in
Speaker 1: the back of the neck. This was the pilot episode.
Speaker 1: And he comes running home to tell his mother, Mommy, Mommy,
Speaker 1: I did something bad. His mother you know who Grace
Speaker 1: Zabriski is. Grace Sabriski played his mother. He runs into
Speaker 1: the bathroom there she is literally spread eagle in the bathtub.
Speaker 1: So you see the origins of his of the horrors
Speaker 1: and he's talking to his mother while she's naked in
Speaker 1: the bathtub, spread eagle in the six you know Partridge family,
Speaker 1: you know there there were you know whoever different strokes
Speaker 1: and this is what's on the air. And Brandon Tartakov,
Speaker 1: who was ahead of the studio, Cattle was known for
Speaker 1: doing the A Team, so he thought he was going
Speaker 1: to get the A team and he saw the on
Speaker 1: the big screen this first episode and he stands up.
Speaker 1: He goes, what the funk are you trying to do?
Speaker 1: Take down this home network? And so Cattle knew because
Speaker 1: we were eleven on the air, he knew we were
Speaker 1: eleven and out and we were off the air. Wow,
Speaker 1: I don't know how good the show was. But it
Speaker 1: was groundbreaking. It was groundbreaking without without doing anything to
Speaker 1: the TV landscape. It's like we we changed the rules
Speaker 1: and we made the rules, and we're never seen again.
Speaker 1: And then nothing happened for fifteen years. And now that's
Speaker 1: it's really the truth. And then and then and then
Speaker 1: Dick Wolfe took over in Criminal Minds, and then the
Speaker 1: whole thing and that's what police dramas became. Right. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a little detour here because let me
Speaker 1: be honest, you've done so much. We we can't we
Speaker 1: can't cover this in a day, not to speak of
Speaker 1: an hour. But you're just pathetic. But go ahead. You
Speaker 1: were just talking about being referring to yourself as a
Speaker 1: working actor. What what what we all want to do?
Speaker 1: And since you started you have you have achieved that.
Speaker 1: Whether it's because you couldn't say no or not, I know,
Speaker 1: it's it's blind luck. It's blind luck. So I want
Speaker 1: I want you for for people who don't really understand.
Speaker 1: How would you describe this lifestyle of going going from
Speaker 1: job to job, character to character, How would you describe
Speaker 1: that and have you enjoyed that as opposed to the sameness.
Speaker 1: Nobody's ever asked me that, And it's a really good question.
Speaker 1: I've I've addressed it, but nobody's asked me there was
Speaker 1: a time. I'm not gonna I'll give you the bad
Speaker 1: examples love Boat Love, American Style, but mcgiver, east Side,
Speaker 1: West Side, Uh, the Defenders, the Twilight Zone. You could
Speaker 1: guest star on a show and get paid well m
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden it became you guessed
Speaker 1: it on a show, you got top of show, and
Speaker 1: it became something where, oh, he can't be a regular
Speaker 1: on a TV show. Now, you and I know that
Speaker 1: being a regular on a TV show pays mightily and
Speaker 1: being a guest star does not. So you can do
Speaker 1: a guest star every week of the season and make
Speaker 1: and make a altry living. But if you've got to
Speaker 1: get on a TV show, if I had my druthers,
Speaker 1: I'd like to be a guest on every TV show,
Speaker 1: every week of the year. That's what I would like
Speaker 1: to do. I would like to be my own repertory company.
Speaker 1: Number One, When you're a guest, they have to tell
Speaker 1: the audience who you are, why you fit in this world,
Speaker 1: why you are in this world. So you're being written.
Speaker 1: It's exploring. It's great. A guest star role is fantastic.
Speaker 1: You get to be in a lot of the episode.
Speaker 1: You just don't get paid. Well, okay, you come on
Speaker 1: and you meet different people, you make new friends. It's great.
Speaker 1: You're you're active again, as opposed to look like. I
Speaker 1: loved every cast I've ever been with. But okay, good morning,
Speaker 1: how are you? What do you do last night? Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go. Okay, the energy, the excitement of meeting somebody
Speaker 1: new isn't there. It's let's just go to the old
Speaker 1: nine to five. Maybe you become more intimate, maybe you
Speaker 1: become closer friends. I don't need that. I like reading
Speaker 1: different people, so so that's what I would like to do. Look,
Speaker 1: you've heard people complain about it when they do the procedurals.
Speaker 1: I used to call it when I was on Spin City,
Speaker 1: same joke, different words. But uh I got tired. I
Speaker 1: get tired of it. I do when now here's something
Speaker 1: else this I have spoken about. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: my favorite TV shows were Batman at All in the
Speaker 1: family You. In every interview that I would read with
Speaker 1: Carol O'Connor or Adam West, they would say, I don't
Speaker 1: want to just be known for being Batman. I don't
Speaker 1: just want to know be known for playing Archie Bugger. Sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: you are. That's who you are. I don't care that
Speaker 1: you did in the heat of the night. I don't
Speaker 1: care that you did any of that stuff. You are
Speaker 1: Archie Bunker. You are Batman. Even at an early age,
Speaker 1: that's scared the pants off me. I didn't want that
Speaker 1: at all. And it's been city. They used to say, Oh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be the breakout character. Get yourself a PR person.
Speaker 1: You're the breakout character. If I'm the breakout character, that's me.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm gonna be known for. So I hardly
Speaker 1: did I every time I did PR, I was scared
Speaker 1: that all people would know me for is uh it
Speaker 1: was Paul Lasseter. I did not want to be Paul Laster.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be a breakout character. Maybe it
Speaker 1: gets your work or a movie or something for three
Speaker 1: or four years, but then you're you're just that guy.
Speaker 1: You just are. There are exceptions to the rule, of course.
Speaker 1: I think my good friend George Clooney is an exception.
Speaker 1: Became known for being Doug Ross was lucky enough to
Speaker 1: break from that, but not many others on that show were.
Speaker 1: It took years for Julianne to become the good wife.
Speaker 1: It's tough. I think Julianne really had the age. All
Speaker 1: I wanted to do was just keep working and working. Now.
Speaker 1: The good thing is I'm not a leading man, you know.
Speaker 1: Jeff Beck just passed away, and I read he was
Speaker 1: interviewed and they said, well, you never became the star.
Speaker 1: You never broke out like Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton.
Speaker 1: But he was voted top one of the top five guitarists.
Speaker 1: And he, like I say, is thank god that never happened.
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't have to do all of that.
Speaker 1: And I saw a clip of him playing on David
Speaker 1: Letterman uh and playing great. He was fantastic. David Letterman
Speaker 1: calls him over. He sits down, your great job, great job,
Speaker 1: and as he's saying ladies and gentlemen, Jeff That gets
Speaker 1: up and walks off and leaving Letterman hanging. And it's like,
Speaker 1: don't know me for being Jeff Beck, know me for
Speaker 1: being guitarist Jeff Beck, and actually Letterman being so funny.
Speaker 1: Jeff Beck is off off into the wigs. He leaves
Speaker 1: Dave hanging and Dave goes. Dave goes accepting the award
Speaker 1: for Jeff Beck. It was hilarious. It's like, what the
Speaker 1: way the hell are you going. I'm not saying, Look,
Speaker 1: my ego does not want to be that, because you
Speaker 1: and I both have huge egos. That's why we got
Speaker 1: in the business. But don't keep me hanging there all
Speaker 1: the time for being on this character. Yeah, keep the
Speaker 1: applause coming, but shut up. It's it's really a dichonomy.
Speaker 1: I love the applause. Shut up. Well. I absolutely love
Speaker 1: your answer about guest stars because you give a refreshing
Speaker 1: different perspective because for me, in this business, the guests
Speaker 1: are role is the hardest. It's it's the hardest because
Speaker 1: you show up, there's people standing there and you don't
Speaker 1: know anybody's name, you don't know where the bathroom is,
Speaker 1: you don't know. But I love the I love the
Speaker 1: uncomfortableness of it. I love the learning and that you're
Speaker 1: just new. Especially I have to admit this too, and
Speaker 1: you get it the same way. We walk on stage
Speaker 1: and we come with a resume and people are nice
Speaker 1: to us. They are nice to us so we are welcomed.
Speaker 1: Here you go. It's still uncomfortable, but they are very
Speaker 1: nice to us, and they're excited to meet us. They're
Speaker 1: excited to see what we do. The only you know,
Speaker 1: the only thing we could do is fuck it up,
Speaker 1: and we're capable of that, but we try not to.
Speaker 1: And so let's not suck it up, and let's let's
Speaker 1: be excited by not knowing where the bathroom is and
Speaker 1: not knowing who these people are, how fast they work.
Speaker 1: And only one time. I've worked for Chuck Laurie a
Speaker 1: couple of times, but at one time, and it could
Speaker 1: have had the taint of he was in in the
Speaker 1: throes of the Charlie Sheen thing on Two and a
Speaker 1: half Men. But I I don't think he liked me.
Speaker 1: He I was introduced at the table comedy legend Richard Kind,
Speaker 1: but he didn't like me. As days wore on and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and he's not the nicest man in the business,
Speaker 1: and he sort of wore it on his sleeve. Not
Speaker 1: that he was mean to me at all, but I
Speaker 1: got it that first day and it didn't continue. Now
Speaker 1: I went on to other shows of his and he
Speaker 1: was gracious and grateful and terrific. Uh. And I knew
Speaker 1: him personally before I knew him professionally. We played poker
Speaker 1: and he was he was great. But you want to
Speaker 1: the executive producers Papa that week and you want to say,
Speaker 1: how am I doing? Am I doing this correctly? Am I?
Speaker 1: Am I doing what you want? Are you be? Are
Speaker 1: you happy that you hired me? That's really important to me?
Speaker 1: And you would figure why would that be important? You
Speaker 1: look at your career, look at all you've done. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. I still need affirmation from Daddy. Tell me
Speaker 1: I'm good. Tell me I'm good. And I don't want
Speaker 1: the audience to tell me I'm good. I want you,
Speaker 1: the writer, the creator, to tell me this is what
Speaker 1: I wrote. I wrote a double. I think you hit
Speaker 1: a triple. You may have even hit a home run. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that's what I want every time I work, That's
Speaker 1: what I want. So that's what I do. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that. And how how true you are? We're
Speaker 1: all looking for for Daddy's approval in one way or another.
Speaker 1: You are You're a member of a prestigious club, one
Speaker 1: that at some point I hope to apply to and
Speaker 1: get it. I wonder what you're talking about. Is this
Speaker 1: the Excessive Masturbators Club? What are you talking about? The
Speaker 1: Character Actors Dining Society? So you aren't talking about the
Speaker 1: masturbatings masturbating. I gotta tell you, I am there's two
Speaker 1: things that are very difficult. One, God, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: so attacked here on behalf of the whole thing. God,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether I should I should mention. First
Speaker 1: of all, it's limited. We started it with a certain
Speaker 1: number of people to get other people in a restaurant
Speaker 1: can only handle that many. You want to be able
Speaker 1: to talk to everybody at a meal, we've already got.
Speaker 1: The table is already too large. It's too large. It
Speaker 1: is truly the Character Actors Dining Society. And uh, and
Speaker 1: we're We're just a bunch of guys who like to
Speaker 1: get together, talk about our families, talk about our wives,
Speaker 1: talk about the work, talk about what influenced this, talk
Speaker 1: the best jokes that we've heard lately, talk politics, talk everything.
Speaker 1: And they are great group of guys. And we can't
Speaker 1: make it much larger. We can't make it any larger.
Speaker 1: And I don't know who's going to die off. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know who's going to die off first, but
Speaker 1: we'll replace them at such a time. It's a great
Speaker 1: group of guys, and they're they're people who there are
Speaker 1: people who I admire, people who I am jealous of,
Speaker 1: people who when I'm in the audition I want dead.
Speaker 1: That's who they are, you know, I, And I've known
Speaker 1: them for a number of decades, quite a number of decades.
Speaker 1: I knew Brian Cranston before he was guesting on Seinfeld.
Speaker 1: We used to play golf together and then, and I'd
Speaker 1: see him every once in a while. Now he is
Speaker 1: considered properly one of the great actors in the history
Speaker 1: of so BIZ. And I know him now as well
Speaker 1: as I know him back then because the dinner because
Speaker 1: of these and be because of these. So he happened
Speaker 1: to have been in New York, I think about a
Speaker 1: month or two ago. So two of the guys who
Speaker 1: are on this thread and this dining society, great guy
Speaker 1: named Danny Burstein, and Brian and myself went out for lunch.
Speaker 1: He he initiated it, Brian did. We went out at
Speaker 1: twelve thirty. I think we met at a restaurant. I
Speaker 1: think we got out of there at four, the three
Speaker 1: of us. It was great, it's great, it's great. And
Speaker 1: uh and Brian, I wish right now I could say,
Speaker 1: we'd love to have you come by. I no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: But there are people, there are people who who asked
Speaker 1: and I go, we can't. I and I just got
Speaker 1: luck of the draw. I was just there in the beginning,
Speaker 1: you know, like number six, and uh, I'm lucky. I'm lucky. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But you but but like like like you say, we
Speaker 1: get to know these people, and you've got a myriad.
Speaker 1: You've got me. You know, you mentioned all the people
Speaker 1: who were on your show. They know you, love you
Speaker 1: and would go out. How do you call Steve Carrell?
Speaker 1: Although he is a character actor, but where where do
Speaker 1: you go from the difference between character actor and star.
Speaker 1: But as somebody said, you know, Brad Pitt is one
Speaker 1: of the great character actors in the business today. He
Speaker 1: really does so many different characters. But fuck him, Okay, true, true,
Speaker 1: I always whenever I think about him, and that I
Speaker 1: think of true romance. Always, you got true romance. How
Speaker 1: about that thing where he was the Scottish boxer. Now
Speaker 1: that's a ridiculous performance that is as good as good
Speaker 1: as they come, that's what I think of when they
Speaker 1: say he's a character actor. Where did he come up
Speaker 1: with that? You know? And I had to talk about
Speaker 1: George the other day, George Clooney on Kennedy Center Honors,
Speaker 1: and I go, yeah, he plays the dec But halfway
Speaker 1: through you realize this dashing, intelligent guy, that smooth talker
Speaker 1: is very different from the other dashing smooth talkers he plays.
Speaker 1: It's just it's it's a variation on a theme. And
Speaker 1: then you go to, uh, oh, brother, where art though?
Speaker 1: And where the hell did he come up with that? So?
Speaker 1: And how did the Cone brothers know he was gonna
Speaker 1: could do that? That was his first movie with the brothers.
Speaker 1: They didn't know him. I know. That's well, they're genius.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk about them in a second. But I
Speaker 1: love this quote. You described character actors as the parsley
Speaker 1: on a plate of meat and potatoes. Do you think
Speaker 1: everybody in the society feels that way? Look, it's no,
Speaker 1: it's me being self effacing. I should have corrected you immediately.
Speaker 1: I said, I and the parsley on a plate of potatoes.
Speaker 1: And that's really that's what I used to say about
Speaker 1: man about You because I used to think Paul and
Speaker 1: Helen were magnificent in what they had to do. And
Speaker 1: I hated doing Man About You because I was never challenged.
Speaker 1: And I once went up to Danny Jacobs and who
Speaker 1: had created the show, and I said, I'm not asking
Speaker 1: to star in the show. Give me one scene a
Speaker 1: week where the audience can say, Jesus, I love him, Wow,
Speaker 1: he's great. And you know what Danny's answer was, I
Speaker 1: can't promise you that. And that's when I hated doing
Speaker 1: Man About You. And he was right. The show was
Speaker 1: about those two and uh, and I'm nothing. I'm helping
Speaker 1: tell their story. I'm going to tell you an interesting
Speaker 1: thing about Seinfeld versus Uh, curb your enthusiasm. It's really interesting,
Speaker 1: Seinfeld are little blips of seeing that are are cobbled
Speaker 1: to together to tell a story. But I don't think
Speaker 1: you ever got more than a forty five second to
Speaker 1: a minute and a half scene. It was a collection
Speaker 1: of scenes that built to an end. They had to
Speaker 1: tell the story. Everybody was really represented every single week
Speaker 1: to tell their story, all four of them. Yes, you
Speaker 1: were truly a device to help those four people tell
Speaker 1: the story. And you never really got to sign. You
Speaker 1: got to make an oppression, but you never got to
Speaker 1: sign on Curb your enthusiasm. Again, you are a device
Speaker 1: to tell one man's story, but you get to sign.
Speaker 1: And that's that's the difference between Seinfeld and Curb. That's
Speaker 1: very interesting. Never really thought about it from from a
Speaker 1: guest perspective. But no, you're absolutely right. Yeah, I got
Speaker 1: an ego. Of course, I'm only thinking about me. So
Speaker 1: that's what I'm gonna say now. And now I was
Speaker 1: never on Seinfeld. I was hired for Seinfeld. This is
Speaker 1: an interesting story. You'll like this. Did you know an
Speaker 1: actor named Brad Mott. The name is familiar, but I can't.
Speaker 1: I only ask you because he's very reminiscent of what
Speaker 1: you do. He sounds like you, he looks like you.
Speaker 1: I went to college with him his most famous role,
Speaker 1: and he was not a very big actor. I think
Speaker 1: he ended up teaching for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: He was. He sat next to William Hurt in the
Speaker 1: movie The Accidental Tourist. If you remember that, he goes, hey,
Speaker 1: you're the Accidental Tourist. I remember it also because I
Speaker 1: read the book. Anyway, that's his most famous role. Great
Speaker 1: guy wonderful actor. There's an audition for Seinfeld. A guy
Speaker 1: is sitting next to Jerry on the airplane. He's talking
Speaker 1: to him and something happens. Okay, I go into the audition,
Speaker 1: and I'm very good at knowing what I'm good at
Speaker 1: what I'm not good at, and I'll lose a job
Speaker 1: because I'm not right for it. I don't turn down
Speaker 1: the audition, but please don't hire me. That's what I said.
Speaker 1: I sort of said, here I go. You know who
Speaker 1: you should get is Brad Mott. He'd be perfect for
Speaker 1: this role. And the audition I walk in and I say,
Speaker 1: use Brad Matty's great. The casting director goes, we already, Uh,
Speaker 1: he's not available. All right. You've never heard a more
Speaker 1: bullshit answer in your life. Because Brad lives in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows who Brad Mott is because he's not a
Speaker 1: working Hollywood actor. But I'm not about to say to
Speaker 1: a casting director you're full of ship, which should have
Speaker 1: been my response. Instead, I said, then I'm by far
Speaker 1: the second best choice. As a joke. I do the
Speaker 1: audition and I got the job, and I was all wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you I sent right for the role. We
Speaker 1: go to work on Monday and back then. I'm telling
Speaker 1: this way too long, but it's a fun story. The
Speaker 1: table was enormously long in the audience was a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty people, because everybody wanted to be there for Seinfeld.
Speaker 1: They want to be around. There was an omelet bar,
Speaker 1: there was bood to be had by all the event.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting over here and way down at the
Speaker 1: other end is Jerry. I'm supposed to be sitting next
Speaker 1: to him on an airplane, so they should have put
Speaker 1: me next to him so that we could have an
Speaker 1: intimate conversation. Instead, I'm screaming the lines down at the
Speaker 1: end for a role I already shouldn't be playing, and
Speaker 1: nothing was landing. After the reading, I went up to
Speaker 1: our director, who I knew, a guy named Tom Seronis,
Speaker 1: and I said, I you gotta fire me. I'm not
Speaker 1: right for this. He goes, no, No, No, you're great.
Speaker 1: I go, Tom, I'm not right. I know I'm going
Speaker 1: to get paid. Fire me. No, you're right. I tell
Speaker 1: Larry that afternoon, who was somebody I didn't know? Well,
Speaker 1: you gotta fire me. No, you're great. We do tuesday's rehearsal.
Speaker 1: Do it all that afternoon we have the run through.
Speaker 1: I said, Larry to fire me. Tom called me that
Speaker 1: night and he fired me rightly. Larry said, we're going
Speaker 1: to change it to be a drunk. It's gonna be so.
Speaker 1: I said, I didn't audition for that. I'm not ready
Speaker 1: for it. I'll tell you who replaced me. Do you
Speaker 1: know who? Joe Mahars m a h e Er, one
Speaker 1: of the great character actors of all time, of all time.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see Uh Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty?
Speaker 1: He was the butler, the gray haired English butler. That's
Speaker 1: who replaced me, the opposite of me. So I got
Speaker 1: fired from Seinfeld, but I asked to be fired and
Speaker 1: I never got hired again. But then I was lucky.
Speaker 1: I got on that. What was the question, Brian, why
Speaker 1: don't you Why do you make me tell these but
Speaker 1: they have no point? But they have no point? I
Speaker 1: love it. I mean, all I know is this is
Speaker 1: that you're way way spicier than Parsley. I know that,
Speaker 1: I know for sure, not as bland as Parsley and pointless.
Speaker 1: You are correct, I can add, I can add to it. However,
Speaker 1: let's face it, we're going to the to the movie.
Speaker 1: We're gonna watch the TV show because of the meat
Speaker 1: and potatoes. Don't worry. I'll make everything look nice. Potatoes
Speaker 1: are white, meat is brown. I'll give you a little green.
Speaker 1: I'll give you some color. But you're not there to
Speaker 1: eat me. You're there to eat the meat potatoes. All right,
Speaker 1: fair enough. I'm going to tell you something else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're gonna jump years ahead because what I'm
Speaker 1: doing now. Okay, do you watch East New York or
Speaker 1: are you aware of East? Yes? Of course I was
Speaker 1: going to talk to you about East New York. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna mention that top premiere of last year. I
Speaker 1: am at this age, with this space and my resume,
Speaker 1: that I am playing a cop. Fantastic, There's nothing how grateful?
Speaker 1: Oh my god. And you know you're jealous, you want
Speaker 1: me dead. I know I'm the luckiest guy in the world.
Speaker 1: That show is a police drama. That show is all
Speaker 1: about detectives trying to solve a crime. What the hell
Speaker 1: am I doing there? I give it flavor, that is
Speaker 1: what I do. I question still, can I be a
Speaker 1: New York cop? Really? At my age with this body?
Speaker 1: Can I and I walk and I see some two
Speaker 1: and sixty pounds cop standing on the corner, New York
Speaker 1: cop and go, yeah, I'm a New York cop. I'm
Speaker 1: not a New I'm not a TV cop. I'm a
Speaker 1: New York cop. You want realism, you want a little
Speaker 1: bit of flavor, you want what New York can offer.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm there for. But I ain't going to
Speaker 1: solve the crimes. I'll help other people will run into
Speaker 1: the burning building with a gun, bam bam bam. I
Speaker 1: ain't doing that. But I lend it great flavor and humanity,
Speaker 1: and that's what I love. Love, that's what That's what
Speaker 1: I always want to do as well, for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's what it's what I do. Um, one time
Speaker 1: I wanted you dead. One time, one time I wanted
Speaker 1: you dead. I have not been lucky enough to work
Speaker 1: with who I consider to be up there as the
Speaker 1: greatest creative filmmakers in the United States, the Corn Brothers.
Speaker 1: A serious man. Now, I think I was a little young,
Speaker 1: or at least that's how I justified it to myself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was one time. You you mentioned that at the beginning,
Speaker 1: like that you want these people dead, just briefly, just
Speaker 1: for a moment. I wouldn't say dead more just like
Speaker 1: the what is it the Gluly uh knee capping incident exactly. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's just another way of saying, yes, I think their kneecaps. Look,
Speaker 1: I had that back when I was understudying a Pellinore
Speaker 1: in seventh grade and Camelot. I wanted, I wanted. I
Speaker 1: wanted a guy dead. I would I was literally in
Speaker 1: my head thinking before Gluley was ever there and uh
Speaker 1: and the woman had her knees knocked out about it? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted. Yes, That's what I'm talking about. Of course,
Speaker 1: I don't want them dead. And I like those I
Speaker 1: love those people. Yes, I love them, but for a
Speaker 1: little while, let them not exist. Uh, talk to me.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of that movie as well. Your
Speaker 1: performance Stellar A serious man? How is it like working
Speaker 1: with Can I say say something else? I wonder? And
Speaker 1: I know what your last name is, and I don't
Speaker 1: even know your religion or your background, But more often
Speaker 1: than not, I would think that you would play the
Speaker 1: Irish kindly uncle like you should do our wilderness? Have
Speaker 1: you ever done our wilderness? Oh? My god, how wonderful.
Speaker 1: You're larger than life you're you're who we You're who
Speaker 1: we want to be with, and that's that's uh, that
Speaker 1: is your your essence. Now, my essence is usually happy
Speaker 1: and everything. And I was sort of lovable, but this
Speaker 1: was a darkly troubled guy, which is a fun thing
Speaker 1: to play, and of course you could play it. But
Speaker 1: initially somebody who was up for the role, and we've
Speaker 1: talked about it was Pat Oswell and could he have
Speaker 1: done it? I just think it would be very different.
Speaker 1: I think that what I bring is a little bit
Speaker 1: of the same lovable characteristics that you would, but deeply sad,
Speaker 1: this lonely guy who goes to what was the what
Speaker 1: was the bar that he went to for the young boys?
Speaker 1: But could that guy be capable of it? Of course?
Speaker 1: And that's what's so great about all of these horrible
Speaker 1: serial killer dramas that they look like the Scout leader
Speaker 1: next door. Uh. In anyway, let's let's talk about about
Speaker 1: the Cohen brothers. I have so many things about the
Speaker 1: Cohen brothers to say, Number one, they are as brilliant
Speaker 1: as you think, and it is not haphazard. I once
Speaker 1: said that I think that like Hidscock the movie, they
Speaker 1: know what the movie looks like before they ever step
Speaker 1: on set. So that's that's one thing they do. Let
Speaker 1: the actors go. When I auditioned for it, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you where I us. I was doing Damn Yankees.
Speaker 1: I was doing. I was doing Damn Yankees in El Paso,
Speaker 1: Texas at a theater. And you don't say no. You
Speaker 1: don't say no to anything tonight. I've always I always
Speaker 1: wanted to play apple Gate. We had two or three
Speaker 1: week run, go and rehearse for a week and a half,
Speaker 1: two weeks go do the play. I wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: So I'm doing Damn Yankees in El Paso and they
Speaker 1: want me to audition for the thing, but I can't
Speaker 1: come in because I'm in El Paso, so they have
Speaker 1: me tape it. And the direction from Joel was, you
Speaker 1: can't be too big when you cry. You're crying, it's beaute.
Speaker 1: And he told me the story of Bill Macy doing Fargo,
Speaker 1: and there's that scene where we all know where he's
Speaker 1: so fresh rated and things aren't going his way. He
Speaker 1: just bangs on the roof of the car. I got
Speaker 1: like that, and Bill Macy said, they're gonna laugh at
Speaker 1: me in New York and they're gonna laugh at me
Speaker 1: in Chicago making a choice like that, acting like that.
Speaker 1: Joel said, no, no, no, do it. It's what everybody remembers.
Speaker 1: He was huge. Who bangs on a call like that?
Speaker 1: But he did out of frust races. So they said,
Speaker 1: you can't be too big. So I had to do
Speaker 1: that tough, tough crying scene by the pool, and I
Speaker 1: was not too big, and so I got I then
Speaker 1: come in. I'm gonna go back in time. I get
Speaker 1: called in to meet them to read for two movies.
Speaker 1: One is burn after reading A Lawyer has two speeches
Speaker 1: and they're huge. I worked and worked and worked on that.
Speaker 1: The other was the Lawyer in Serious Man. How hardly
Speaker 1: worked on it and it's it's nothing. I didn't care
Speaker 1: about it. I wanted to be in the movie with
Speaker 1: George and Brad Pitt and Fran and uh and do that.
Speaker 1: I didn't get the loyal role, I mean the the
Speaker 1: this lawyer and Burne. After reading with the monologues, I
Speaker 1: didn't get. It killed me. They don't want me for
Speaker 1: the Lawyer and in Serious Man, so I read for
Speaker 1: the Rabbi. They say, we want you to look at
Speaker 1: the character of the lead, the Michael Stoulberg part. I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, you're the Cone brothers. Why would I
Speaker 1: want to do a cold reading. Let me go home
Speaker 1: and study it and then I'll come back for You're
Speaker 1: not doing this for a long while, right, Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 1: They never called me back, so I gave up the
Speaker 1: lead by not auditioning, by not doing cold reading. However,
Speaker 1: then it was summertime and they asked me to do
Speaker 1: the I think they had finished doing Burne after reading,
Speaker 1: and George, who was on the set at the time
Speaker 1: and who was my good friend, said no, no, no,
Speaker 1: the boys really want to They always put it like this,
Speaker 1: the boys really like you. The boys want to use you.
Speaker 1: The boys really like you. That's when during the summer
Speaker 1: I put myself on tape for cousin Arthur or uncle Arthur,
Speaker 1: and that's when I did. I did the thing. But
Speaker 1: I had auditioned, you know, from December through till June.
Speaker 1: So well, congratulations on that. I do want to bring
Speaker 1: up you brought up George a couple of times. You
Speaker 1: you know, you talked about meeting people and a variety
Speaker 1: of people on projects and how much you love that
Speaker 1: you guys ended up becoming roommates, and well, yes, we
Speaker 1: were roommates. We were roommates because it was an Oscar
Speaker 1: and Felix thing he he had. He had split with
Speaker 1: his wife and so he stayed with me for a
Speaker 1: while before he uh got his other place. And then
Speaker 1: I used to stay at his house. So was I
Speaker 1: a roommate? No, I was a guest at his house.
Speaker 1: But I would never call us roommates. Wouldn't say no.
Speaker 1: But but we did stay together because of circumstances. Do
Speaker 1: you and he do you all talk about work and
Speaker 1: what interests you and potentially people or projects that that
Speaker 1: he has steered you or you have steered him into.
Speaker 1: Never once have I steered him into anything, given advice.
Speaker 1: I used to be astounded at some things. There was
Speaker 1: a role, I mean, he's so smart. There was a role.
Speaker 1: He He wasn't a big it wasn't a star then,
Speaker 1: but he was getting offers and big things. He was
Speaker 1: offered a role on a script that he really liked.
Speaker 1: We would talk about I really loved the script, that
Speaker 1: really and you'd be surprised by it. And then they
Speaker 1: rewrote it and he looks at it and he goes
Speaker 1: this this, they rewrote it severally, called the producers or
Speaker 1: called the director. He said, this is not it's not good.
Speaker 1: But we got to go back to the other one.
Speaker 1: They do well, We're not going to He ended up
Speaker 1: not doing the movie. It was a big budget movie
Speaker 1: and it did not do well. Number one, another big
Speaker 1: star are got the role. He walked away and it
Speaker 1: was probably a million dollars maybe more. It was a
Speaker 1: big movie. It bombed, It bombed. That still stays with
Speaker 1: me that he is so astute, and he always says,
Speaker 1: you know these movies that they haven't finished the script,
Speaker 1: but there's already a coming attraction in the theater. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: you go into a movie when the script is finished,
Speaker 1: you know how it ends. Now you can't tell that
Speaker 1: the Humphrey Bogarten and Ingrid Bergman because they kept rewriting
Speaker 1: Casa Blanca. But I understand that. On the flip side,
Speaker 1: for myself, he is always so intuitive and has great
Speaker 1: opinions and can give great advice. And there are times
Speaker 1: when I don't take it and he gets furious of me.
Speaker 1: He's truly angry. I'll tell you he's angry at me.
Speaker 1: Then I go I I did it, but we don't
Speaker 1: talk about work that much at all, No, hardly, hardly,
Speaker 1: hardly talk about work at all. Plus season, especially now
Speaker 1: he's in a sphere of things that you know, it
Speaker 1: would be like asking, uh, some little soldier who's out
Speaker 1: in the field, what what we should do in the Ukraine.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's just the heads and tails above my sphere. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating that you both are such good friends.
Speaker 1: The idea that you, you know, what you just said
Speaker 1: that he had the ability to turn down something that
Speaker 1: was a million dollars or whatever, and again you you
Speaker 1: say yes to everything. And what's fascinating to me about
Speaker 1: that is not I mean, you know, of people have
Speaker 1: different choice or whatever, but that that for you, it
Speaker 1: feels to me like that you say yes to life
Speaker 1: basically absolutely I'm going to is something that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: This really really interesting. And it happened last night. I
Speaker 1: didn't get to see the Barbara Walters special that they
Speaker 1: did where they celebrated her life and she asks the
Speaker 1: celebrity a lot of them, what is your philosophy of
Speaker 1: life or what is something like that? In my head,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, what if I was interviewed by what is
Speaker 1: my Philansphy? I want what we were talking about. I
Speaker 1: want new experiences of everything, travel, food, my glib thing
Speaker 1: about a date. If you are at a restaurant, your
Speaker 1: favorite meal is on the menu, or the house specialty
Speaker 1: is on the menu, what do you order? I I
Speaker 1: will ask about the house specialty, and if I believe
Speaker 1: from the person who is serving me that it's really something,
Speaker 1: I will order that for sure. I am close to you.
Speaker 1: There's not a prayer. I'm not ordering the house specialty.
Speaker 1: I don't care if they say it's the steps throw up.
Speaker 1: I'm ordering the house specialty. That's what I do. I'll
Speaker 1: never have that again. Where will I be You say
Speaker 1: it's the specialty, okay, unless it's like the fish of
Speaker 1: the day, because oh we had we ordered too much that.
Speaker 1: But if they if I'm told that this Polish restaurant
Speaker 1: has duck and and it's the best thing ever, and
Speaker 1: I'm not really much for duck, I'll order the duck.
Speaker 1: That's how I lived my life. I want the new experience.
Speaker 1: That's what I want. Out of two hours of Barbara Walters.
Speaker 1: They haven't shown George. He's the one who they that's
Speaker 1: what he answers. Seconds from when I answer in my head,
Speaker 1: George goes, I'm afraid I'm going to miss out on something.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid I'm gonna miss out on this experience. Then
Speaker 1: I'll die without having done that, and the same answer, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was the same answer, a little different words. I
Speaker 1: think I just want to experience everything. But you're right,
Speaker 1: that's what life is. I tell my kids that, and
Speaker 1: when they don't listen, I want to grab them by
Speaker 1: the lapels and say, no, do this. I invited my
Speaker 1: children to the Kennedy Center Ronners. I can't force them
Speaker 1: to go, and I wasn't going to It's the fucking
Speaker 1: Kennedy Center Honors. Chances are if you don't go with me,
Speaker 1: you're never going to the Kennedy Center Honors. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna meet Gladys Nate, you're not going to meet the
Speaker 1: President of the United States. There's a chance, a real
Speaker 1: good chance, you're gonna meet all of them if you
Speaker 1: go with me. They said no, I'm okay with that
Speaker 1: a little bit. I understand they don't want to be
Speaker 1: in that, they're young doing that, but that that that's
Speaker 1: what I want. That that's my philosophy and I do
Speaker 1: embrace life. That's I want it all and I am
Speaker 1: of oma was fear of missing out, fear of missing out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it takes it takes me forever to you know, to
Speaker 1: get to a party, but to leave all close the
Speaker 1: place up. You and I are alike in that way,
Speaker 1: and I will I will tell you this one. I've
Speaker 1: always respected your work. I respect you even more now
Speaker 1: and too out of this conversation. I will never ever
Speaker 1: forget the dream that you told me because it's so aspirational,
Speaker 1: which would be if they had the money to do
Speaker 1: a guest star part every single week, to be your
Speaker 1: own repertory company. I think that is I think that
Speaker 1: is so fucking cool. I think that well, I have
Speaker 1: a question because I so love your work. Uh, how
Speaker 1: often do you get to do place? Not? Not not
Speaker 1: so much anymore, but you know, you know what's so
Speaker 1: funny about that? And who knows, maybe this conversation will
Speaker 1: make me do I have been talking about it like
Speaker 1: a lot the less months, and I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: a long run. I'm talking about going to Seattle and
Speaker 1: doing it for three weeks or finding out a gunquet
Speaker 1: is doing. Uh, you know there's one play out in
Speaker 1: a Gunkuet, Maine. Because the thing about TV, which it
Speaker 1: gets scary, is that you walk on set and your
Speaker 1: goal is to get through the day, is to do
Speaker 1: I know all my lives? Not even do I know
Speaker 1: my character? Do do I do? I gotta get all
Speaker 1: the words out. That's no way to act, you know.
Speaker 1: The way to act is going and really parts a place,
Speaker 1: be getting deep. Yeah, that's what it is. So anyway, Richard,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on here. You have
Speaker 1: one made me laugh and two inspired me. So thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. But I really hope is that I like
Speaker 1: I talk like this, that I'm not pompous. I can't
Speaker 1: stand it. Wait if I listen back and I go,
Speaker 1: why do you even talking? No? No, it's awesome, it's awesome.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, thank you, thank you, Richard. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for stopping by for a little chat.
Speaker 1: I'm going to see you on a golf course very
Speaker 1: very soon. Look, I think it's safe to say, not
Speaker 1: just me, but all of us are mad about you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That wasn't good either. To all of you out there listening.
Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in. Next week. We have got
Speaker 1: a pretty pretty exciting guest coming your way, who I
Speaker 1: will give you absolutely no hints about, because well, I
Speaker 1: value the power of surprise. We'll see you then. Off
Speaker 1: the Beat is hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner,
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