Allow Richard Kind to Tell You Some Stories — About ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ ‘Inside Out’ and ‘Sharknado 2’

‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ as Cousin Andy

Shelley Berman, who played Larry’s Dad on Curb, is a great and comic guy who, forgive me for talking ill of the dead, was a pain in the ass. 

On Curb, there was one time we were doing a thing where we were talking about burying Larry’s mother. It was me, Jeff Garlin, Larry David and Shelley. You have Jeff, who’s the biggest mouth in the world. You have Larry, who’s really great at playing Larry. You have me, who's a good improviser and I can pull focus when I need to if I have a good line or idea. And then you had Shelley, who was old, wasn’t loud, a little feeble, had a huge ego, and he’s not getting his screen time. 

We’re talking in the scene, and all of a sudden, Shelley screams, “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” We all look over, and he goes, “Listen to me!” 

It was the worst improvisation in the world, but it made us all laugh.

‘Spin City’ as Paul Lassiter

During the filming of the pilot of Spin City, I’m doing a scene with Michael J. Fox, and as he’s doing it, I’m looking at him going, in my head, “Really? That’s how you’re going to say the line? That’s what it’s going to be?” It’s almost like he wasn’t paying attention or that he was hardly saying the lines or that he didn’t mean them. 

But when I watched the finished product, I looked at it and I went, “Oh my God, he’s a magician.” It was magic.

Now, I can tell you the difference between Michael J. Fox and Carol Burnett. When you’re acting on a four-camera show in front of a live audience, Michael treats the camera like a funnel, like it’s wide at the end and it just comes in so close and it gets his face and his eyes, but he needs the audience to tell him where the laughs are. He uses the audience as a tool to give him the timing, but he knows exactly where the reality is. He’s so smart.

Carol Burnett is the opposite. She’s so smart, but it starts with her, and she spreads it like a megaphone. She takes it out and embraces the audience. Two very different styles of acting in front of an audience. Michael couldn’t do theater because he’s very small. He takes all of that energy, but he makes it small for the camera. Carol was great at theater because she took it and could go to the back of the house and into the rafters.

I’m more like Carol, as is obvious by my acting style. I’m great onstage and not as good on camera, and what I’ve learned in the last five or ten years of my career is how to be more like Michael.

‘The Producers’ on Broadway as Max Bialystock

The Producers and M*A*S*H are probably the two movies that shaped me the most as a human being and as an actor. I love The Producers. I adored watching Nathan Lane play Max Bialystock. I could watch Nathan do anything. I love him. He’s facile. He can do everything. He can segue and move. He’s an ice-skater. He’s a dancer. He’s magnificent, which is how he played Max.

I’m a gorgon, much more like Zero Mostel than Nathan was.

I was asked to audition for Hairspray, and I said I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t be better than Harvey Fierstein. I couldn’t add to it. I couldn’t even make it different. My different wouldn’t be as good. With The Producers, I couldn’t do it better, but I could do it differently, and that’s what I tried to do.

I got into big fights with the guy who was directing me as to how I should do it. Then, when the choreographer came in, I said, “I can’t do it like that, I have to do it like this,” and he said, “Yeah! Go ahead and do it!” So that’s what I did.

What was I doing? I was dirtier. I was grittier. I was ugly. I was Fagin from Oliver Twist. I was Jewy — I was an ugly Jew. I was an ugly Jew producer. Whereas Nathan was a slimy Jew producer.

You can always remember that strand of hair that used to go down in front of Zero’s face in The Producers — he was an ugly rhinoceros! He was a monster. He was a gorgon. He was a gargoyle. That’s what I tried to do, and I think Mel Brooks really liked me. He even mentioned me in his autobiography, which was really nice.

‘Sharknado 2: The Second One’ as Harland ‘The Blaster’ McGuinness

Yes, I did Sharnkando. I’m not proud of it, but I’m not embarrassed by it either.

A really good friend of mine was friends with the producer. They lost some guy, and they were asking her who she knew and she said, “Richard Kind’s in New York.” So they asked me if I wanted to do it. 

I don’t care that it’s Sharknado. I don’t care how much money I’m making. I don’t care what I’m doing. I don’t care if it’s good, bad or indifferent — it’s a job. That’s what I care about. One afternoon out at Mets Stadium? That sounds great! What the hell?

I get people today going, “I love you in Sharknado!” I get people saying, “How could you do Sharknado?” I didn’t do Sharknado. I did a job that happened to be Sharknado. It happened to be funny, and I don’t want to say “iconic,” but it was memorable. 

Plus, I do everything. I just fucking don’t say “No.” Why not? It’s what I like doing. It’s what I get paid to do. I like to think it’s what I do best, and I like to think I’m good. So, what the hell?

‘Inside Out’ as Bing Bong

The entire time I was doing Bing Bong in Inside Out, I thought I was going to get fired. The thing about animation is, until it comes out, you’re so disposable it’s unbelievable. All you’ve got to do is go in and re-record! I did about eight to eleven recording sessions as they wrote and reanimated. They loved me as a person, and they loved me as a character, but you never know. Finally, it was the last session, and they told me I was doing it with Amy Poehler. I hadn’t been doing it with anybody. I’d been doing it alone, reading lines with some of the writers and producers. I thought, “Oh god, I must really stink! They’re trying to see if maybe they can bring out some chemistry with both of us.” 

But it wasn’t that. I had the role, and it was good; we just so happened to have a recording session together.

The other thing I can tell you is, when I recorded the final scene, when we’re down with the orbs and I say, “Take her to the moon,” I saw some of the animation, and I said, “Let me do it again,” and I did it better. I said, “Let me do it again,” and again and again. I did 20 or 30 takes, maybe more. I realized that I was so in touch with this character and what he was doing that I wanted to be Bing Bong at that moment. I wanted to do it over and over again because it was such a pure moment, and I was acting it with such purity.

Cut to an actor like Daniel Day-Lewis, who wants to be Abe Lincoln. He says, “Call me Mr. President,” and he’s wearing the shoes from the 1860s and he just thinks he’s Abraham Lincoln. Well, Danny, you’re not. You may want to be Abe Lincoln, but as close as you get to being Abe Lincoln, you’re still going to wake up as Daniel Day-Lewis.

There’s a purity that you want to hit — that you feel — but you have to understand you’re only acting it. You aren’t that character. You can be the purest form of that character, but you’re not that character.

Now, here’s my joke about the sequel: I know Pete Docter really well, and when I heard they were making Inside Out 2, I said, “Pete, you can’t have Bing Bong in it. He gave his life.” Now, Inside Out 2 has become the largest grossing animated film in history. I might have garnered half a million to a million dollars. And as much as I love Pete Docter, when I think about that movie, which is a masterpiece, I say, “Fuck you, Pete.”