For Richard Kind, joining “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4 in the role of West Tower resident Vince Fish didn’t take too much convincing.
“They offered it to me. They said, ‘We’ll give you money if you play the part.’ I said, ‘Good, that’s good enough for me’,” the veteran actor of TV, film and theater told TheWrap in an interview when asked what drew him to the role. “If a show that’s produced by Dan Fogelman and John Hoffman, starring Marty Short, Steve Martin and Selena Gomez says they want you to work with them. You drop everything and you do it. I don’t care if they had me on the toilet reading the Yellow Pages. You do it. I am drawn to these creative people and I trust them because their talent cannot be contained to a page. They’re just spectacular.”
Kind admitted he was skeptical at first when Fogelman informed him that a part was being written for him in Season 4 of the Hulu comedy.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that when somebody says we’re writing a part for you, 95% of the time, it doesn’t happen. You never hear from them, that’s the way it is. I’d love for it to be different, but it’s not,” he said. “On this one, Dan Fogelman, who I’ve played golf with, says ‘We have you in mind for a part. We’re writing a part for you.’ Dan Fogelman is an honorable man. There was a part and they called and it happened. I didn’t think it would happen, but Dan is a great guy. I’ve known John Hoffman for a few years and I know Marty Short. Those are three people who I adore and I know that they like me. That doesn’t mean that if they didn’t call that they’re mean people, but that’s what Hollywood is like. These people happened to have called and so I did it.”
One of his favorite days on set was getting to work with Steve Martin and Eugene Levy on episode 3, in which the pair enter his character’s apartment looking for clues to see if he may have murdered Charles’ stunt double Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch).
“If you asked me when I was a young waiter in New York hoping to get some Off Off Broadway show that I would be in a scene with Eugene Levy and Steve Martin and it would be really good, I would’ve said, ‘You’re lying. I can’t talk about it because I’ve got to go wait tables.’ I can’t believe that I got to do it and that’s my life. They’re both legends,” he said. “Marty, Steve and Eugene still operate at the top of their game. They’re older than I am and I see them and say, ‘Hey, keep going. You still got it. You can still do it.’
He also praised working with his fellow Westies, Selena Gomez, showrunner John Hoffman and the rest of the cast and crew.
“It’s everything you want. You’re working with certainly professionals and the best that the business has to offer and the writing is good. You hope you rise to that level and I hope that I did,” Kind said. “Everybody on that show is at the top of their game, the writers, the actors, the directors. To be in the same room was a real honor. [Kumail Nanjiani, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Desmin Borges and Lilian Rebelo and Griffin Dunne] are all great actors, their characters are so well drawn. The material and the twist in episode 8 is so good. We didn’t have to work very hard, it all just flowed.”
Prior to racking up nearly 300 acting credits across film and TV, including “Mad About You,” “Spin City” “Inside Out,” “A Bug’s Life” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and appearing in Broadway shows such as “The Tale to the Allergist’s Wife”,“The Producers,” “Funny Girl,” and “The Big Knife,” Kind lived in New York City and worked as a singing waiter.
He recalled subletting his studio apartment on 72nd Street and Broadway to the likes of Jon Stewart and Jeff Garlin while he would leave town to attend Second City in Chicago in the early days of his career.
“It was very inexpensive when I got it. I think it was $187 per month when I first started renting it and it was a terrific place. I would never sublet it for more than what I was paying. I would call it my patronage of the arts. First of all, that’s sort of illegal and I try and live on the up and up. Secondly, we’re all starving artists, especially at that time. So why would I charge anybody more?,” he said. “I was very lucky that I was making a living at Second City doing theater. And here are people who are trying to earn a buck. Jeff was trying to be in stand up, Jon Stewart was trying to be in stand up. So I would pay the rent and they would pay me and the landlord always got it from my bank account.”
As Kind’s career took off, he decided to give up the apartment when his landlord found out what he was doing.
“After I had done ‘Spin City,’ I came back to town and I had children. But I wanted an office space and the apartment must have been about $290 or $300 by this time. So I call up the landlord and said, ‘Listen, the window sill inside is rotted and falling off, the place needs a paint job.’ And he says to me, ‘Mr. Kind, somebody tells me you are on TV, what’s the story?’ and this was a rent controlled apartment. And I realized, as much as we all hate landlords, I was cheating this man out of a lot of money every month. He could’ve gotten $1,000 a month easily. So I said, “You’re right. I’m giving up the apartment.” As much as landlords will cheat us, I just didn’t want to cheat this landlord and so I gave up the apartment.”
When reflecting on his long career, Kind says he’s grateful to have collaborated with everyone from the Coen Brothers and Mel Brooks – who praised the actor’s performance as Max Bialystock in his 2021 memoir calling him as talented as he was loud – to John Mulaney, Nick Kroll, Ike Barinholtz, Pixar’s Pete Doctor.
“These people who keep me relevant are so funny and surprise me and I think it’s great,” he added.
When asked if Kind would ever want to return to any previous roles or projects, he said he would love to do David Mamet’s “Romance” and Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties” again, On the film and TV side, he said there were three shows he appeared in that were canceled too soon: Prime Video’s “Red Oaks,” HBO’s “Luck” and CBS’ “East New York.”
“I would have liked to have seen them go on longer,” he said. “They all had, not just potential, they were spectacular of their form. I don’t know whether or not they should be redone, but they should have continued.”
He also questioned Hollywood’s decision-making behind sending movies straight to streaming rather than giving them a theatrical run.
“I don’t understand how [streaming] makes money because they’re operating at a loss. They’re spending so much money. It doesn’t make sense to me. How do you take a movie like “Wolfs,” which is so good, and don’t put it into the movie theaters?,” he said. “I don’t understand how entertainment exists anymore. I do love Tiktok and Youtube, but I’m an old man and I don’t understand it anymore and it upsets me, because I like working and I like being entertained. I think that the theater and movies can sustain our soul. I think it helps us.”
