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Richard Kind is the Platonic ideal of the character actor. When he appears on screen—as Larry David’s cousin on Curb Your Enthusiasm or Rudy Giuliani on Scandal—you invariably think, “Oh, that’s that guy! I love him!” With his Borscht Belt rhythms and capacity for irritability, Kind, at 68, is something of a throwback to Paul Lynde or Dom DeLuise: explosive comic relief who brings a touch of fun to the vast world of show business. “I can’t be Bob Newhart or Mary Tyler Moore, like May the Sixth in a sitcom,” he told me recently. “I’m a supporting character.” Despite his many roles, from Stephen Sondheim musicals to Pixar animation, Kind can be described as an insider: adored by those in the know, but not so famous that he has a throng of fans like his close friend George Clooney.
Case in point: When we met at a café on the second floor of Fairway, an Upper West Side market just a few blocks from his home, he was mingling nonchalantly with other Nebbishes. “This is just fine,” he said, enjoying coffee and avocado toast (with a fried egg, ordered runny). “And then I’ll go home and someone will notice me.” It was a warm spring day, but Kind had arrived wearing a chunky plaid sweater he’d borrowed from the set of Only Murders in the Building, in which he plays a man with antibiotic-resistant pink eye. (Much of his wardrobe is from the shoot.) “One day,” he continued, “I was walking with Brian D’Arcy James, and some guy came up to me and said, ‘Didn’t you run a porn stand on 34th Street?’ ” He grinned. “There is poetry in it.”
Still, his latest gig on “Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney” has given him perhaps his widest reach to date. On the Netflix talk show, which airs live on Wednesday nights, he acts like Ed McMahon, playing a version of himself from behind the pulpit. He and Mulaney have known each other for years—Kind voices Mulaney’s father on “Big Mouth,” and the two appeared on the classic “Documentary Now!” episode “Original Cast Album: Co-Op.” “Everybody’s Live” (which wraps its first full season this month after a six-episode pilot last year) veers away from the traditional late-night format for something looser and weirder. Henry Winkler might share the stage with a funeral director, and callers discuss topics like cruises and misassembled dinosaur skeletons. Kind, amused but game, finds himself drawn into Dadaist humor. In one episode, he shows off his illogical “partying sprees.” In another episode, it is revealed that he has suffered a brain injury that causes him to believe he is Gene Simmons from Kiss.
“He likes me! He’s crazy!” Kind said of Mulaney during our breakfast. (He was shuttling between episodes of “Everybody’s Live” in Los Angeles and filming “Only Murders” in New York.) At one point, he was approached by a man—not a fan, it turned out, but a former New Jersey firefighter whom Kind called “my best friend here in town.” Our conversation, which has been edited and condensed, touched on his father’s jewelry store, the months he and Clooney spent as roommates, and his enduring love of “Don Quixote.”
How would you describe your work at Everybody's Live, or how has it been described to you?
Nothing was explained to me. I’m not kidding. I didn’t know the show was renewed until I read about it in The Hollywood Reporter. Isn’t that crazy? I called John and said, “If you don’t want to use me, I completely understand. I wouldn’t be offended.” And he said, “I would be very offended!” How can I characterize it? Well, the simplest way is: I’m Ed McMahon. But that’s not quite right. Ed McMahon is the most famous. Andy Richter and Alan Kalter were perfect examples of what I do.
Have you studied these people?
Oh, God, no. You think I worked for this? When I act, I have a giant ego. I want to be the best on stage. I don’t usually get much, but when I get the chance to prove myself, I really want to be good. Here, I just want to serve John. I don’t care what I look like. I’m not going to win an Emmy. This is John’s show. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just following him. I was trained at Second City. I’m a really good “yes, and.”
The gist of the show is that
Sourse: newyorker.com
