Richard Kind knows you recognize his face

Boston Globe

26-02-2025

'It's not going to the dentist, so if you're going to pay money and see me, you might as well be entertained,' he says. While he's talking about himself non-stop — 'that's what I've been hired for'— he hopes to educate, too. 'I try to teach the audience a little bit about the business of show business, by elucidating exactly what's going on. I think it's a little interesting... I hope.'
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He does not, however, discuss his acting process. 'That would bore everybody,' he says, 'but I'll talk about how I got a part or what it was like working with the Coen Brothers. Or I'll tell you what happened when I got to meet Paul Newman.'
Now, before Kind can reveal his encounter with the iconic film star, he veers off into a story about once doing a reading for a Neil Simon play. 'See, this is how I'll talk during the show,' he says of his name-dropping digressions, explaining that Simon had tried adapting his autobiography for the stage, but that it was a disaster because it required modern actors to try and play the likes of George C. Scott, Maureen Stapleton, and Art Carney.
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'That's no good,' Kind says, 'but sit around the table and have Simon tell you about seeing Scott and Stapleton when they used to drink and curse and it's great. And that's what you'll see in my show. It's an oral autobiography.'
The one constant in this oral autobiography is that at every show he ends up mentioning one of his closest — and most famous friends — an actor by the name of George Clooney. They worked together on a failed pilot decades ago and are so close that Clooney was best man at Kind's wedding and recently came to New York to support his latest Broadway appearance. Kind jokes that 'I'll talk about how we met but not about why he's my dearest friend — he gets enough publicity.'
Then, after a prompt, Kind returns to the Paul Newman story. Kind of.
In 1998, he appeared in Clifford Odets' play 'The Big Knife' at the
That sojourn to Williamstown is one small beat in a forty year career. Even recounting the broadest outline requires a bit of going on and on. Kind got his start in a Chicago theater company co-founded by
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Kind broke out in the 1990s in a supporting role in 'Mad About You' and then a bigger role in 'Spin City.'
'When I was doing 'Spin City,' people said, 'You're going to be the breakout character.' But I never wanted to be the breakout character,' Kind avers. He recalls that growing up ('when I was supposed to go to law school or work in my dad's store') he loved both Batman and Archie Bunker, roles that he says were blessing and a curse for the actors.
'Adam West and Carroll O'Connor both said, 'I'm an actor, I can do more than this,'' he says. 'Carroll O'Connor was lucky enough to do 'In the Heat of the Night' after, but Adam West was Batman and only Batman. That would have been hell to me. So when I was doing 'Spin City,' I didn't even have a publicist because I didn't want to be known for just that role. I wanted to go and do other things.'
In other words, Kind knew how not to be famous. Since then, his genially rumpled persona with a face and a voice to match — has helped him to continue popping up in supporting or small roles in a steady stream of series and movies. He is frequently beleaguered and bemused, as in the Coen Brothers' 'A Serious Man,' or on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' 'Red Oaks,' and 'The Other Two.'
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'People may ask 'Who,' if you mention my name, but if you show them my picture, they'll say, 'I know that guy,'' he says.
Off-camera, he has lent his comedic vocal stylings to 'Big Mouth,' 'American Dad' and Pixar classics including 'A Bug's Life,' 'Cars,' 'Toy Story 3' and, most memorably, 'Inside Out,' where he voiced the beloved Bing Bong.
Pick a credit, any credit, and Kind has a story in store. But he's a raconteur who goes with the flow, so in his show, he doesn't always get to the ones he sets out to tell. Before a recent show, he told Bianculli he had a funny Clint Eastwood story. (Eastwood directed Kind in 'Hereafter.') But, of course, Kind kept veering off in his own directions with other sagas to recount. 'He had questions about Eastwood ready for me, but we never even got to it, never even dug one foot into it,' Kind says.
Kind's friend Griffin Dunne says his persona is not far from the real man — he's both hilarious and sweet. 'Everyone loves the guy,' Dunne said in a recent phone interview.
But he adds that while Kind may not discuss his process in his show, he's a gifted actor. When 'The Big Knife' was re-staged on Broadway in 2013, Kind earned a Tony nomination. 'He was explosive,' Dunne recalls. ''Everyone knew he had a big voice and was hilarious, but in that play he was a revelation as a monster.'
And when they appeared together last year on 'Only Murders,' Dunne was struck by Kind's dedication to bringing his character's loneliness and alienation to life.
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'It's a comedy, but he was playing a complicated character and his work got me to up my game,' he says.
After so many credits, even being on a show as popular as 'Only Murders' can't force the kind of fame on Kind that he has long avoided. 'In New York, I walk around and one person will stop me to say, 'You're a national treasure,'' he says. 'Then I pass a hundred people who don't know who the hell I am. But that's not a bad thing. It's what I've always wanted.'