Richard Kind is doing great
I'm glad we're talking about this
Go look at Richard Kind’s IMDb page sometime. Here’s the link. Make sure you block out some time, though, because that sucker is long. In an interview with Vulture this week, he estimated that he was around 290 credits, which is impressive both for the number itself — 290 roles is… it’s a lot of roles — and for the fact that the actual number is 293 and he was that close with his guess. Start at the top and scroll down. Look at the variety. He’s done voice work in a bunch of Pixar movies. He appeared as a judge on The Good Fight and a mayor on Leverage. He’s been in multiple movies where the main character is a dog. He was in Spin City and Curb Your Enthusiasm and just about every fun niche comedy of the last 15 years. He was in a Sharknado movie. He was in an Air Bud-adjacent movie called Spymate — IMDb description: “Funny spy chimp teams with spy friend's smart daughter to stop the bad guy from using a superweapon” — that you can watch for free in its entirety on the AirBudTV YouTube channel. No one can accuse the man of being lazy.
I bring this up now for a few reasons. One is that he just talked about it in that interview with Vulture, which I linked to up there. It is a wonderful read all the way through, including the thing where he talks about being close friends with George Clooney. That’s a reality show I would watch. George Clooney and Richard Kind just like traveling across Europe together. I’m kind of mad it’s not already a show, actually. But look at me getting off-topic again. My point here is, like, look at this.
What’s your standard for accepting roles at this point in your career? Has it changed over the years?
The most important thing is they have to ask me. That’s a joke. I recently did such a low-budget movie there were five people on the crew. The director was the one doing the clapboard. Why do I do it? I really love acting. What else am I going to do on a Tuesday and a Wednesday? I could go play golf, but I’ve already got a lot of golf. This film had a sweet part and I helped out a guy who probably spent his last dime. He said he edits car commercials, but he wants to write and direct and act. So I said, “Yeah, okay, I’ll do it.” It took me two days out of my life. I got to act. So that’s one reason.
What a damn sweetheart.
Which brings me to the other reason I wanted to write about Richard Kind today: Richard Kind has been really killing it lately. He’s wearing an eye patch on Only Murders in the Building, he stole huge chunks of the summer sensation Everybody’s in LA, he’s going back to Broadway with John Mulaney soon, all of it. Just everywhere on everything that’s worry watching. It says a lot about the guy that the funniest and smartest people want to work with him over and over again. He just seems like a good dude, which is great because he’s also just ridiculously talented.
Yes, this is where I post the Christmas Tips song from Documentary Now again. Look at the man do his job.
So… yeah. Big shoutout to Richard Kind. The guy is doing what he loves at a high level and prodigious pace and appears to be almost universally beloved for it. I’m glad we’re all taking a minute to notice it, kind of like we did for Paul Giamatti a few months ago when he was collecting trophies and bringing them with him to eat cheeseburgers. There is another reality show I would watch. Richard Kind and Paul Giamatti doing… anything, really. We know Richard would do it. Maybe it can be the project that bumps him over 300 IMDb credits.
We should throw a party when he hits that number. A real rager. The kind of part that… actually, no. Let’s let the man himself handle this one.
I’m sorry. I know this last past felt forced. I just had that screencap on my desktop and really wanted to use it. I think Richard Kind would be okay with it.
STUFF I TYPED
— Vulture has allowed me to do a weekly recap-adjacent blog where I rank the spies of Slow Horses based on how incompetent they are
— wrote about the Dragon Queen, my new favorite character
— this isn’t technically something I typed, but thanks to a reader named Craig who hosts a radio show in San Diego, I am now apparently making a weekly appearance on, well, a radio show in San Diego, which I mention here because a) I apologize to the people who were stuck in traffic in Southern California on Tuesday morning and had to listen to a very congested man ramble about a golden toilet heist, and b) a big part of making this newsletter is self-promotion, which I am bad at but trying to get better at, so if you have a radio show or podcast or whatever and want me to come on and blabber about the kinds of things I write about here, please feel free to reach out and we can see if it’s a fit
STUFF I CLICKED ON
— love to see Maya Rudolph winning awards and getting big profiles written about her
— turns out I will read an interview where Creed from The Office picks his 12 desert island albums
— good blog about Google doc travel guides
— “How Martin Short became a new generation's Don Rickles on late-night TV”
— Kelsey McKinney is obsessed with the Paralympic bench pressers and now I am too
— I watched Rebel Ridge this weekend and loved it for a million reasons — the movie rips, it must be said — but I did legitimately gasp a little at this line, which will probably make you gasp too if you watch it, which you should
— give me the Dolly Parton wine
— JC Chasez’s comeback project is a concept album about Frankenstein, which, like, good for him, man
— incredible Jeopardy anecdote
— Macauley Culkin is going on a Home Alone tour and I really hope he booby-traps the theaters
— HBO responded to GRRM’s now-deleted blog post about how mad he is over House of the Dragon
— “Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body”
— “Crime minister has purse stolen at police conference”
— two great Americans
— my biggest takeaway from this story about Guy Fieri being mistaken for a bartender while hanging out at Sylvester Stallone’s house is that… Guy Fieri hangs out with Sylvester Stallone?
— “Butterfly thieves handed $200,000 fine in Sri Lanka”
— incredible Frankie Munoz tweet
— Jomboy’s 12-minute breakdown of the Phillies-Rays fracas is just an incredible work of sports journalism
— been trying all week long to figure out how I feel about the new Michael B. Jordan version of The Thomas Crown Affair and the only thing I’ve settled on is that I need more time
— yes, I will watch the TV show where the creator of Veep skewers superhero movies
Okay, that’s all for this week. Please share and subscribe and try to be more like Richard Kind.