Richard Kind

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. 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

Place in my heart.

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, super talented, famous actor Richard Kind.

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.

Oh right, okay, yeah, because now we're on the Yeah, I'm in New England.

That's very lovely. Yeah, no, it's very nice. But of course I live.

In New York now too. No, I didn't know that.

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.

I wasn't born here.

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.

Well.

And also I think of you as being the quintessential New Yorker. For a very specific moment in time ahead to could.

So.

Do you remember when you were doing The Producers on Broadway?

Sure?

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.

You probably don't remember that because it was a lot of stuff going on.

Well, funnily enough, I came back, I said hi after the show, and you were great in the show.

Great, And I came back to tell you that.

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.

Always that fantastic? Is that the story? That is great?

I know that is great, But seriously, how was I You were great?

You were great?

You're getting it was a high point of the evening, so you might have been in a good mood.

I think I was.

I think you cheered me up. I think it was. It was a very funny. It is a very funny show.

So wonderful. Was it your first time seeing the show? It was the first time seeing it live.

I'd seen obviously the movie, but i'd never seen, never seen the musical.

Okay, yeah, great. Oh that's a wonderful story, isn't it. I'm so happy for you. Oh great.

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.

Joke, this is a joke.

Okay, good, thank God, thank God.

No.

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.

I embraced that reality. That is fantastic.

Well that's a very special place in in my heart.

But you, I think of you as being a Broadway guy, But I suppose you're not really a Broadway guy.

Really.

I mean, when you are, you're a Broadway guy, you're an actor, you do all of those things.

Right, I kind of tell you.

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, and I never thought, well, I was in second city.

I just thought I had to go. I had to do it.

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?

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.

And people don't know where they are. I mean, is it's exactly you know I'm trying to say.

People think, oh, you're really having a moment now and everything like that.

No, I'm not.

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 perception of view.

I think of you as being a big star since the nineteen ninety since spent thy Since.

You're wrong, No, and I are wrong. I am.

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.

I'm somebody who.

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 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?

We used to have millions.

Okay, the glory because I was doing the Drew Carry show at the same time you were doing.

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?

Yeah? It was.

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, 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.

This asshole that got to be? Many of those people got his name.

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.

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.

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?

That's what I give.

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?

Two seasons?

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.

All they got to do.

Is ask me, So we have to three seasons they asked me.

You're right. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a funny thing, though, isn't it?

Because I think fame and it's particularly proper actors like you, who are like real actors who do it.

It's a thing, and it's a craft and.

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.

And they don't know you.

They know who you play, because who you play, you play a very vary bunch of people.

Yeah. I like to say that.

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, 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.

My runaway note?

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.

And I'll tell you this too.

As you probably know, because you know a lot of people who have achieved great fame, fame is a prison.

Anybody who goes after fame is a fool.

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.

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.

Hit man that I have to stay out of everybody's way, yes, no, no, no ah, Look, I I do.

Like people coming up to me and saying they like me.

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.

It does make me happy.

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 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

I can't give you. Absolutely.

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 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.

I'm okay.

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, a kind of a kind of fucked you about it.

And well that that that that that's what those famously the comedians will say, I killed them, I slayed them.

I had them in the aisle.

That's like, I need you, but I hate you, and I because I hate needing you.

Yeah, I need them, I do. I still need them as much as you did. Do you think.

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 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,

It's so on you.

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.

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, 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 you do well.

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.

Uh.

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 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

Like that book there. Control of that. I have no control of that.

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.

What doesn't that?

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.

Kills me.

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.

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.

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 take the blame for.

We got to do another. That's kind of clever. And thought I thought that was very smart. You know what to watch another?

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 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.

Times very interesting. There's more.

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 I think it was a mane.

Maybe, I think so.

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.

And then you got upset with him.

If he's upset while he's doing that, it seems ill with you.

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 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.

There's there's been quite a low on that recently. I feel like the pendulum swinging the other way.

Don't worry. We got a president will take care of it.

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?

For you? You don't come from a shoebiz family, do you? No, not at all.

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.

That's the rules of sneezing.

Oh no, oh god, well, no, wonder my life is a disappointment.

Sneeze You always sneeze three times.

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.

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 that do anything. But yeah, yeah, remember, of course I am.

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.

And the trailers were saying that Warner Brothers.

Yeah, he George would play basketball every day every day and he would go over and play basketball.

We'd come back and all the women hanging out with trailers and watch him go play basketball. Cal that's funny.

But he was and that's when his star was really beginning to you know, TV doctor.

And he was great, and he was always great and he was.

And I no, no, no, no, no, he was not always great.

He was always great to us. He was always great. Person. He was always great. He's always great.

Oh, since I know him, he was a great man, a great level moral man.

Yeah.

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.

I don't know that if you judge George Clooney on his uh, I'm the man you'll find no better.

No, No, that's what That's what I always thought.

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.

I think that's it. And Richard kind Have you heard a bad story about me?

No? I actually I haven't heard a bad the story of it.

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.

I find myself on it.

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.

But I feel bad. I do well.

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.

The mene to douchebag ratio was exactly the same as any other walk in life.

I think that's true.

You know, it's just that some people were great, some people were assholes.

Well, actually I disagree with that.

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 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

You know, it's funny. It's funny. I remember that.

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.

Of the baby seat and going back home. Oh yeah, my kids make fun of me. My dad.

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, Yes I'm not. You know, we have we have to

I think my feeling is it actually was, because first of all, I didn't talk to a lot of kid actors the well.

I what I did do?

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?

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.

Yeah. It's a small Lettle ecosystem. So you get to hear if.

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 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?

Boy? I wish I could remember. Oh, I know who it was. It was still close, old man and old man.

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, stop it, stop looking, tim Busfield.

Tim Busfield, must it right now? And he goes, of course they're nuts.

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.

You gotta be nuts. That is nuts.

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. 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

Of the camera.

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.

Someone will say is he nice? Like what? All the time? He's like everybody else. He'll be nice.

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?

You go, I don't need him to be nice. He's Lemmy I don't need him to be nice, like Mick Jagger.

Is he nice? I don't care. I don't care if he's nice.

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 it's been that way since uh uh with the other newspapers that not the National guy.

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 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

I like it.

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 importance by who I saw that day.

They are so tired of it, so you can't.

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.

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, 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.

And I look back and I go, really, you're bragging about him.

But so and so went on a cruise and they met, believe it or not, Jerry Paris.

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.

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 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

That year.

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 it was it was that second city, and I was one of the six.

But a blessing that is a metal.

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.

I go sober as well. I was like, I don't know about any of this.

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.

And I can tell how it happened.

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, 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.

So he was lucky.

He became a writer, producer and made a gazillion dollars.

He's much wealthier than me. He was a on a successful TV show. He made millions. I am a thousand there.

Successful act But your daughter's calling you from a said master abroad in Spain.

Right, you know I'm one of the lucky ones. I guess there are ten movie stars.

What are there?

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, you do seem.

To be everywhere right now is interesting, But I've seen there have been parts of your career.

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.

Then I remember you being everywhere.

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.

It doesn't matter. I'm always working.

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?

I'm always acting. I always am acting. I just am. Are you are your kids drunk to you? I'm a good father.

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 actors in Hollywood.

I didn't like working with them mine. I didn't like being a red cand actors.

I remember saying to the they would always say to the parents, why do you let your kid be an actor in Hollywood?

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.

Like, that's not a reason to let a kid do a thing because they want to do it.

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.

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.

Don't like the parents. Instantly, that's on me.

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. Let her do community theater, go do school plays. Let her put on plays, pay for them.

Do what.

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.

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.

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.

I think, yeah, eight year old's, ten year olds, I think they want to be stand ups.

I think he's crazy. I don't necessarily agree with you.

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.

Oh wow.

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.

That's very interesting. Yeah, yeah, I know my experience with that at all.

Yeah.

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.

How many kids want to be a fireman? You know?

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, here's what it is. My joke is I I was

Yeah, It's called Rifkin's Festival, and it was it was fun. It was fun. Nobody saw it. You know.

It's now it's now during his uh uh you know me too, a series of movies.

But that's what it is.

Yeah, that's interesting. Did you grow? Did you become friends with him?

Is he? Is he a friend? I can't sell.

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 think he liked me. Uh, and then he cast me.

He can't good?

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, 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.

He was right. I hit. I hit the joke.

Uh.

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.

Let's say, boy, it was a funny line that should have been conversational, and I knew it was funny.

I hit the funny. Let the let the funny sit. He was right, and I can and I cringe.

To this day.

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 he was happy. He says, good job, and then he went back and everybody looked at me, and he goes.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

I was the director of a movie. What the big movie? But they but we got the.

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 I cannot be express how much gratitude I feel for you, your skill and your talent and being here today. I mean,

That.

Who doesn't love hearing that? Who doesn't love a boy a pat in the back and say you're great?

Thank you? Yeah?

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.

I don't see.

What I mean is I don't see anything pathetic about wanting not for yourself.

I think that I agree.

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.

Oh no, no, no, I can fish anyway. You are wonderful.

I remained the enormous fan of your work, and because you were always really kind to me when I was on your show.

That was on your show about three times, and.

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.

However, it will be round, so don't make my face too fat.

I'm kidding, Okay, it would be appropriately jolly for Christmas.

Fine, okay, Craig. I what a pleasure to talk to you. It's very nice.

It's a joy for me. Thank you, Rachel, thank you so much. You bet