Michael Richards

28:27He just thought it was funny what I was putting myself through. But I'd be very quiet. I had on my own little place. I'd lay, I'd visualize the whole scene, all the ways I could go, the way I'm coming through the door, the way I'm going to stand by that counter, standing by a counter can be funny. Just standing by a counter can be very, very funny. Can you find the funny in just standing there without a line? Yeah. So I'd create back stories that would kind of entertain me. So I'd keep my characters potently alive. And I'm going to have to wait for the next line to come. It's funny, even when you hear you talk about it, it's just funny idea.

29:05It seems insane. Yeah, it's funny. It's funny. But you've seen it. You've been around enough artists who got no clue what they're going through to get the right lyric, to get the beat, to get the rhythm. No, no, that's nothing again. You're not going to wait, wait, wait. It's okay. It's okay. But it's not okay. It's not okay until he's arrived. Yeah. You have to arrive. As much as you were prepared and focused and making it happen seemed like Jerry was the exact opposite. Like he was barely there. I always felt like he had the luxury of working through others. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people around him.

29:45It's true. Assisting him. It's true. And me, I always felt more isolated. I had to come all the way through and invent a character, voice, look, mannerisms, justify it. So I don't get too broad. It's got to fit in because everybody's playing close to themselves. You got to believe that this guy, you could meet this guy on the street of New York. Yeah. But at the same time, I'm pushing it. Yeah. I'm pushing it and elevating it. But I was always fearful of falling into character. So you see, I've got my own little deal that I have to work through. But Jerry just was Jerry. Could it ever go too far and still be believable?

30:27Oh. It's like, where's the line? I mean, I started to take it off the laugh. The line was the laugh. I'm getting the laugh. The audience was starting to move me along. I could feel how much they were going to take, certain intuition, feeling them. How important is the audience in all of this, in terms of like when you're performing, theater, television, and then movies where there isn't nobody's clapping? That's right. But there you have to know. One hand clapping. I mean, there you have to know where the audience is going to come through because they're not there. We made the pilot without an audience.

31:10And we all just presume that the laughs were going to be there. We're in the place that they should be. Now, times I hated that audience because, not a real hate, but I mean, I trained in theater. And I don't like to blow a line or make a mistake in front of the audience. And if I have to do it again, I know the response isn't going to be as strong because they've already seen the scene. They've already seen the bit. So now I have to freshen it up, particularly if I'm doing physical comedy. So if I know that I'm coming to a bit, I'm going to do, I won't step into it unless I know that all lines up to this point are okay.

31:50Otherwise, I'll flub and just take the scene again because I don't want to give away my hand. So to speak. I did live television on ABC for three years on Fridays, a live sketch comedy show. I dare not look at the cue cards because I have to be in character. That's my kick. So I don't look at the cue cards to get my lines. I see actors on can go, I cannot do that. But I do 78. I saw how many 78 and I 80 shows, one and a half hour shows and I never flubbed the line. But I worked so hard. I was so terrified of going up, life, life, in front of the country. Tumente's pressure. So I wish they weren't there.

32:32I would have preferred to just shoot this in a studio like a film because you got lots of takes when you do a film. Particularly when you're doing physical comedy. And we know chocolate would take what a whole week. He just shut everything down and take a week out just to figure out how he wants to tumble down the stairs. How he's going to pad those stairs. How he's going to take the fall and make it funny. You see, if you had an audience, a live audience, I don't think you would have got any of that. There's no way. Of course, they were more complicated bits. Certain buster Keaton. I wasn't the live audience.

33:04So he's got a bridge falling on down all around him. It was complicated. It was this form of engineering, a physical bed is most extraordinary. And to have all that know how around him to build it the way he needs to build it. Otherwise, somebody's going to lose their life around here. Him, usually. Indeed. Because usually the thing was falling on him usually. Absolutely, man, oh man. They took the time. They had the time. Yeah. Shit. I mean, it took a while for me to even get a physical bed on Seinfeld. Because it's a talking edge of the cameras here, cameras here. When I suggested some physical comedy one time, I said, I could come in and tell this whole story.

33:42How about if I acted out? How about if we do a scene where let's see this story. Let's do this story. Let me do this story. We haven't come in and talk about it. Yeah. Yes, it's in the past. Let's get into the present and do this story. Jerry just looked away and says, we're doing the story. Holy, holy, holy, holy, Jerry, you know, he believed in me about to bring about the doing of a story. And that was an episode where I was putting dry cement in a washing machine. And got all messed up with the cement and trying to get it in there and being with a 50 pound bag and doing something physical off the wall and trying to recover.

34:24Because I want everybody around me to think, well, I'm perfectly normal being in here with a 50 pound sack of cement. Don't mind me. And we did that and I was like, ah, it's one thing to say comedy. It's another thing to do, come in. If you could bring it both together to say and do funny. Has the physical aspect of it always been an important part of you? Oh, yeah, absolutely. The fan came natural. When I rode my bike into a tree for my friends and get that big laugh. And the way I would run my bike into a tree, so in a way to run the bike into the tree where it really just looks so preposterous, you're going to get big laughs.

35:06Now where the hell did that come from? I could say, maybe I saw it a lot on hearty. Maybe I saw somewhere I saw it somewhere. Well, when I was doing it, I wasn't thinking about, I wasn't imitating anyone. It was just in my being like a homeless person drawing perfect circles or a savant sitting on the curb and nobody can beat this guy playing chess. Nobody. This guy is, what?

35:34Dealing with something very, very special coming through. And for all of us, I believe everyone's looking for that whatever it is that's coming through. I mean, for me, this is my kick. I get animated talking about it because it's my mojo. It's my deal. It's my gig. It's my thing and to have it come about and lift me up and create such purpose in my life. You know, to be driven by such purpose. It's all I thought about. That's another thing. It's all I thought about. Can you imagine? That's all I think about. Yeah.

36:10Does it matter if you're doing it for the world on television or for a group of 100 people in a theater or for three people in the street? I do it for my son. I do it for a few friends that come over. When I stepped out after the big, the big bad night 18 years ago. I was in New York. I'm not hiding out. I'm out in the streets every day. I took up street photography. I'm on the subway. I'm talking to everybody. No hat, no glasses. I'm right out there with everybody. That's the way I want. I went ultimate extroversion for the introversion, the recluse. That comes rather natural for me. In New York, it's funny being in that city.

36:59I was like, cool. Just what? I was just embracing it and it was embracing me. I could be on a street corner hanging out with some people. Yeah. It's blacks. I was brought up in black neighborhood. So I feel very comfortable. And I just start jiving, just talking, telling some stories. Some shit about me on the subway. And people, ah! Everyone's laughing. I'm on the corner. They got cream on the corner. Look at this funny motherfucker. Somebody pulls up in the car. Somebody running a club. Hey, Jeff Ringan. Michael, why don't you come into the club? Perform, I'll give you a, come in, come into the clubs.

37:36I go, I am in the clubs. I was on the corner. Yeah. I was doing a set. It's coming natural. Yeah. I'm ding dong in around. And that's where it all comes from in the first place. In a sense, right? I didn't need to have a club that are room and a manager and a gig. And we're putting it all together. And then it's going to be this. And that, and that, and this. I was right there, very cool. On the street with a few people. And I'm with the whole world. That's a great feeling. It's great. Yeah. When it's working, it doesn't really matter. It's not about scale. You know, it's about that, the feeling that you get when it's just connecting.

38:20It's a great feeling when it comes together. Absolutely. It's divine. Yeah. It really is. That's exactly that's the words. Yeah. And so I've had some divinity in my life. And in turn, when I stepped away from performing, I saw an extension of that divinity in other ways. You know, and that it's running around all over the place. Maybe it's everywhere. It's just a matter of being tuned in to it. You start seeing it in other people, whatever they're into, what they're doing, what they're up to. What's this guy? What's this person's gig all about? Because they are into it. I mean, I don't want to stop.

38:57Too dark here, but even somebody who's in the dark, maybe doing a lot of bad stuff, is driven by something to get it done. So you see the divine kind of working on both sides of the streets. That's something we're still trying to figure out. I'm kind of watching it very closely. In my own place, I hold a center. I don't fall to the right or the left. I'm much better at centered at 75. But I see a whole lot of mischief going on here. It's interesting how this world has both sides. You understand what I'm saying? I think also, ultimately, we're all one. We're all the same. And Dei. There's no us in them.

39:38You know, it's like we really are one. Absolutely. Like a day and a night, it's all kind of the whole of what the world is as it turns. Usually when people talk, they have much more in common than the differences. You get there fast. The more time you spend in different parts of the world, it's hard to think of people on the other side of the world as enemies. Because if you're there and you meet them, they're just like you. Do you know what I mean? It's only through the distance and the name calling it a distance. And you know, the monsters on the other side of the planet. If you go to the other side of the planet, we're all the same.

40:16Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the way of evil is something that's interesting. How somebody just breaks loose and isn't thinking about the one. They're just thinking about taking out a few in some weird way. This war against parts of ourselves. And I know that's what's at work, a great war against ourselves. I don't fully understand it. No. It's a mystery to me. But I know we live in a field of life and death. Yeah. And so death comes about in many weird ways. And it's something that all of us have to go through. How you go? Okay. Yeah. I mean, I got cancer like three years ago. You know, I was like, okay, here we go.

41:04I was ready to go. And then I looked at my son. I said, yeah, I got a 10 -year -old here. A night, he's nine then. She'd like to be around for more of this. And it turned out there was a physician who said he could help me. It's going to take some surgery. But we could get it in time at cancer. And they did. And I'm swinging for the time being. That's great. Yeah. Tell me about the world of stand -up you entered when you did play in that world. What was happening in stand -up? At that time. When I came in, the regulars, they were regulars. Let's just say at the improv, you know, there was, you know, J.

41:48Lennon, Bill Marr, Sandra Bernhardt, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal. Everybody was working there for $25 a night. I just came into the scene. Andy Kaufman was there. And yeah, I love. He was weird. Great trickster. Did you meet him? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Andy, yeah. It was on Fridays and we created the sketch where he broke up. I broke out live on television. I knew he was going to do, I mean, it's set up. Yeah. But the country didn't know. Yeah. Performers, oh, God, I know. I'm probably leaving so many out. But I mean, over at the comedy story, Gary Shanley was going on. There's Jim Carrey. Everybody was just working it.

42:27And there wasn't any success in it other than just working it. Yeah. Late at night working on his stuff. So much stuff. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everybody. And they all got in or grew. And this is before comedy had its moment. Absolutely. Wow. And I walked into this because I had a dream when I was in San Diego. There's a strong, powerful dream where I saw a clown old in the glow of the earth. And I walked toward the clown. He turned, he had my face. And a friend of mine who I had done stand up with many, many years ago when there were no clubs in this town. We were working at the Trilvador Old Doug Weston.

43:04We went up to him one early evening dressed in tattered tuxedos, you know. From a play had done. He was waiting for Gado. And the friend of mine was at Begley, Jr. And he put on one of the tattered tux. And it was too short because the actor that was in the play with me who wore that tux was about a foot and a half shorter. So his pants were up underneath the knee. So that's how he looks. And then I'm wearing my tuxedo. And I thought, well, to distinguish my look, I'll just roll around in the dirt. So when we came into the club and we were wearing World War II gas masks when we walked in. And these tuxedos looking the way we look, we pulled them off.

43:44Hi, Doug. You know, we're here to be funny. We're making weird faces. He actually put us up that night. Wow. And he, we were completely loony tune up now. And the act is improvising just off the wall going crazy doing this stuff in between the setting up of the bands or something. He was giving us $25 to do this. Now we're working at the Trulidaw, you know, three days a week. Avery Shriver came in who was in the ball with Jack Burns. They had their kind of Avery kind of as a mentor. He's going, you guys are completely out of your mind. Stay with it. Stay with it. We were encouraged to be insane.

44:22Can you imagine what a gig to be encouraged? To be insane, lovely. And we're being paid for this back in 1969. So I had a dose of the stand up. And then I was drafted, took that whole scene on. Then I went to Kelly, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now I'm down in San Diego and I'm doing these plays and I have this dream. You know, this clown holding the globe of the world and it's my face. And I thought I'm going into the club and I'm going to go into Los Angeles and start working in the clubs. Next day, after that dream, Ed Bagley Jr. calls me, I haven't heard from him in years. I hear you're down in San Diego, you're doing a play and everything.

45:00How you doing? I go ahead. I just had a dream and I told him the dream. I said, I'm coming to LA and I'm going to start working in stand up. This is my old stand up partner, you know. The call right after you see is not interesting. The universe was giving you police. Ah, yes. It's like you weren't working alone. You had help. It's saying, get it. Yeah. There you go, bud. You know, take on your destiny. It's your fate to do social. I went to the clubs and within a short period of time, I was a regular and which was rather neat to be. But how different was your act than everybody else? I can't imagine it being anything like them.

45:40I was Lucy Goosey and Wild and physical improv. Most of it. I come up with some stuff I tried to stick to. Carried your bass. I was messing around. Characters flying around and weird, physical, weird. Physical, yeah. As I tear the whole place up, I was possessed. I was the capital of fool. That force was with me. May the force be with you. Indeed. And I could get going. Did you ever use alcohol or drugs? No, you never. I didn't want to mess around with what was going on. You were found by something else. I don't know. I was in a room and I said, I go, hey, I'm there already. I'm trying to get, I'm trying to come back in so that I fit in.

46:27You know, you go ahead and take your journey. Send me a postcard. I'm already on the move. You know. It's a nice way to describe it on the move. Yeah, I'm on the move. So then you're doing stand up. It goes well. Very well. And then what happens? I was always rushing out, never checking in with Bud Friedman. Yeah. I just go to the open mic night, do my thing, and I had to drive back to San Diego. I got a baby. You know, I've got a three year old. I got to get up in the morning. I was taking a class. I thought I was going to be a Montessori teacher. Because I wanted to be there for my daughter who was going to be entering, you know, that school they began at two and a half.

47:10And I was studying all these education, Rudolph Steiner's, Waldorf schools. And morning, glory school, all these kinds of, I was really into my daughter. You did a great teacher. Maybe, maybe. Yeah, because you have an inspiring demeanor. Oh, I do. It's like that. Yeah, that goes a long way. It's you, Rick. You bring me an album. You know, tell me more about the Friday's experience. First of all, how did the gig come to pass? Easy. Very, very easy. I was on the stage. Producer saw me. That's coming off stage. I go, we'd like to have you on our TV show. We're doing a show for ABC. It's called Friday's.

47:53We want you to be a member of the cast. And I go, like, yeah, listen, I have to go. I drive a school bus. I have to go. I'm sorry. I can't talk. And I was out the doors running late that. And I really did with driving a stool bus. I took a class in fan eyes, learn how to drive school buses. I took the whole course. When I moved to LA now with my wife and my kid. So you, the whole car. So I really drove a bus. You had regular jobs while pursuing all this. Yes. You had to survive. Yes. I can't survive on $25. Right. $75 a week, whatever. There you can have an apartment or apartment. I think was $125 a month.

48:32I'd probably be good at. But that became a regular at the comedy store too. Yeah. But this was under the tutelage. The mentoring of Charlie Joffie. I don't know if you remember him. He was probably one of the most powerful personal managers. You could land. And if it wasn't for Jay Leno saying to me, Michael, that man who was just talking to you, that's Charlie Joffie, stick with him. What? Yeah, right. Yeah. I wasn't sticking with anybody. I didn't know. I noticed he was there in the audience most every night. He's the one that set the thing up with Fridays. He took a hold of it because I went out the door.

49:04I had to go drive a school bus. And these producers are laughing. Ah, he's so funny. They thought I was joking. Yeah. After an act like that, this guy is actually going to drive a school bus. I got a call the next morning. Charlie says, you know, these producers. They're from this is up and up. This is a, you want to meet with them? That's a show they're offering you a TV show. I said, okay. Well, all right. I'll meet with them. But I can't do that and work the clubs. Maybe we ought to meet them and see what they have to say. And so you see, I'm not very good at the business side of things. Yeah.

49:40So he took a hold of that. Next thing I know I'm on that show for three years. And I wanted to do that. Never went back into the stand up scene again. Because I always felt the stand up scene was a mean stoop. And here it is. After seven months, I got a TV show. And that's it. Just the clown holding the globe of the world. Was it shot in LA or New York? Shot here in LA. And tell me about the experience. Who were the cast members? Was it a good crew with a... Larry was there. And talk about... Was Larry a writer? He was a stand up comic. And they brought him in from New York. They saw him. And they brought him out to audition.

50:16His first night audition didn't go too well. He didn't like what he was doing. So he told everybody to fuck off and left. He had the network sex. Everybody's in there waiting to see Larry David. This is an audition. Fuck it. And he's out the door. So on Fridays is where you met Larry? Yeah. And then the next night he auditioned again. He blew everybody away. The next thing I know, he's not only a part of the cast, he's also a writer. I had that same position I could write for some of my characters. So whatever. So Larry and I were on the show. We friends? I don't know. The environment was so crazy and competitive.

50:53We were cordial, but everybody was just trying to make it every week to get in a scene to write something, come up with a, oh, you know, you got to create a returnable character. Got a regular character on the show. That's what you want to do. Who is the Lorne Michaels of that show Fridays? I don't think we had a Lorne Michaels. It may have been part of the problem right there. Jack Burns was with us for a while there, but he took up Coke. And that became another kick for him. And he had to go. Tom Moore came in. He was a director, a bona fide director from New York, a director of Greece. He had done that show.

51:35He was very good. I felt he was running things because I could tune into a director. I've got a real acting director here. So I like to take notes from him and tune in to things through Tom. And particularly when it came to the scripts and felt that there should be some rewriting or something to bump this up a bit because the way it is now, it's, I don't think it's as good. It could be. John Moffat did his best. He was focused on the bands. He shot the bands. We had a lot of bands each week as somebody would come in. And he spent a lot of time shooting them.

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53:52Tell me what was the week leading up to a show like Tell Me the Schedule on Fridays? Three days, the most, you are flying by the sea to your pants, rewrites right up to camera man. Fast paced, nerve -wracking, when you learn your lines. Crazy, crazy, crazy speed. It makes you get good. Hey baby, buck up! Get it done, you know? And that's right. It does make you good. It was perfect for me, really. Absolutely. And then how long was it between that and Seinfeld? About four years. And what were those four years like? Working as an actor. That's all I wanted to do. I didn't want to go back in the stand up.

54:37I tried it, I was there for about, right after the show I was in there for about four months. I hated it. I just felt like this is not where I belong. I could feel it. So I insisted that Charlie Jaffee do something for me. Because he wanted me in the club environment. Most of his people were in the club environment. They were born and raised and continued to grow through the club environment. Robin was one of them. He only had like nine people. Woody Allen, Robin and Billy and Klein and Letterman. Nice group of people. Yeah. But they were very, very... They were much more stand -ups than you. They were stand -ups.

55:16And you were an actor. It's different. Jim came on board and he was stand -up at the time and continued to be stand -up with them. But I went on an agent. I wanted to go out and read for things. And as soon as I got that agent, I was just reading for things and pretty much nailing everything and being an actor. And I mean, a serious actor. I was playing heavies and real crazy shit. Serious as much as comedy. Killer is crazy people on TV. You know all that. And I loved it. Just running around, you know, and a lot of make believe. Yeah. How long would it take between seeing the material and figuring out your take on the character?

55:54Not long. Usually I would audition with character. I'd come in very quickly with that. I knew that's where they were looking for. I would come in. I would just be holding the character and they could feel it. You've heard the old thing about cast and directors. They can tell the moment the person walks in the door. This is the one. Have you ever heard that one? No, I never heard that. Yeah, there's a good casting director can tell right away. I knew that if I came in character, that's what they're looking for ultimately. But I could stay close to the lines. But I wouldn't be down here like, you know, I would like to put it to side.

56:29And if I take it around playing heavies and I could really play those heavies. Would you dress accordingly? Sometimes not much. I felt that it would come through. I like playing heavies. Weird, kind of offbeat, kind of characters. They seem kind of comedic in some way. There's something fringy about them. Yeah, yeah, fringy. It's a great word, fringy. Yeah, I always thought the ultimate would be playing comedy villains. I remember I saw Terry Thomas playing that villain in the movie Tom Thumb. Oh, it's just lovely. His sidekick was Peter Sellers. I said, look at these guys. The menacing and scary and yet they're so funny.

57:13Yeah. You bring the two together. You got something there, you know, comedy villains. I watch a lot of pro wrestling and there are villains and they're always funny. They always have the best lines. They're really the stars of the show. They are. Yeah. Yeah. Andy loved wrestling. Yeah, obsessed. I saw Andy play at Town Hall. And it was very beautiful. I was probably in either junior high school or high school. And that's the first time I saw Tony Clifton his opening act. And perfect villain comedian, Tony Clifton. And it blew me away. Yeah. Blue me away. And never saw anything funny here. Yeah, like most people in denial of their shadow, you know, Andy tapped into that and he denied that was him.

58:04And they'd say, you know, you're playing there. He said, what? I'm not. What are you talking about? Would I behave like that? You know, the sign of the thing. This is some asshole who's playing me. I'm going to sue him. I'm going to sue this. It's ruining my career. These people think I'm that person. Why would I be? How dare you? Then he become like Clifton in a sense through his anger. He did it to me. One time I called him up, we were going to have an idea to do together. And I said, you know that Tony Clifton character goes, oh, now you too. Fuck you. And how I'm talking about me. Screamed at me like that.

58:42Wow. And I got on the phone. I tried to call him. I could get you. He talked to me for a week. In real life. Ignored me. Yes. That's amazing. Yeah, he played it to the hill. That's amazing. Yeah. Now Bob Smooter, who's behind a lot of his tricks. Yes. And I became friends and hung out. And I got in on a lot of the secrets. I first, of course, when Andy was dead, he passed. I thought, of course, like many people, that's all fake. He's going to show up two years later, you know, say he was taken up by a space vehicle. Or 40 years later. A 40 years later. No, no, no. Yeah. Interesting. Wouldn't that be any way to this long to come back?

59:26God, that must be a lot of fun. And just waiting. Did you feel a sympathetic connection with him? Like, did you feel like we're cut from the same cloth or no? I felt that way with everybody in that club. I thought we were all part of the great fool. Yeah. I had so much respect for all the stand -ups. To be able to stand up in front of people. Yeah. Like that. And I saw a lot of the teams, the groups, the improv group, the comedy store, great groups, Rick and Ruby and the village idiots. A lot of that was accessible. If you thought you wanted to improvise, just hang out with the group that night, you know.

1:00:06A lot going on. Did you ever try that? I did it one time. What did you feel like? I felt interrupted. I couldn't. Everyone was jumping in. I see. And being very fast. I don't tell jokes. I'm not a wit master. Yeah. You know, which is something I really respected in Robin. Yeah. And it'd be so witty and so fast. And then moving a million miles an hour through an array of characters was extraordinary. To me, he was a deity. I mean, clearly, blessed with a profound ability to just come through in such a free way. It's just long running through him. Powerful, powerful stuff. You feel it when you're around him.

1:00:54Digging his work in life. I could feel it as strongly in the movies. Yeah. But when it was live on stage, you'd shake up the molecular. Yeah. Powerful stuff. Yeah, it's a cosmic energy. Yeah. I would even get that seeing him live on television. When he would do his act, you could feel the power even through the TV. Yeah. People around him on those shows would just go, whew, whew. Yeah. What was that? Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about what was the idea to do a book? How did you come to it? I called a gal who'd been my publicist for, she's just for the last 30 years. And I said, I want to do a book. I need somebody to just help me with a structure.

1:01:40I got 40 years of journals here. Got lots of stories, lots of things to talk about. She's a sign of just a person and it was a kind of Todd Gulp. And he and I got together and we just had the tape recorder going. Sort of like what we're doing here for about two weeks. Yeah. Thousands of pages of transcript because I get going, going, going. Yeah. And then I had to wait through a lot of this. Ooh, boy. It's a lot of work. Yeah, it's a lot of work. And I think the book was nearly 800 pages. And we had to bring it down to 427. But I have about 125 images in it. And I'm very big on pictures and images.

1:02:21Have you collected them over? I collect a lot of images. They're all cataloged and folders. When did you start keeping a journal? God. Probably about the time I started doing stand up. You know, about the time I had that dream. I was starting to write down dreams because I had a few before. And then that took me into Carl Jung. I said, oh, wait a minute. There's somebody here who's talking about the nature of dreams. I wanted to know more about dreams. What the? Because this all about. What are these influences all about? Particularly when it's providing me with a direction, I'm getting something.

1:02:53I'm getting an idea out of it. And again, you know, being so much into the realm of the make believe. How the dream makes us believe. Yes. In its appearance, at least with me. I felt a resignation. I felt a truth. I felt a voice. I felt compatible to an intelligence that's saying, hello. Offering it to me. It was profound as an Ezekiel receiving a scroll from the Almighty. In that wonderful story of this man who's touched by some director. He's a man who gives him more direction to attend to. Building a temple is like building a career. Building what we're going to step into. And feel so supported by ultimate order, you know, in the course of one's lifetime unfolding.

1:03:55You know, that's how I felt about certain dreams. Yeah. Well, a dream can't be wrong. You know, it's a different thing. It's not right or wrong. It just is. I was so assured when I read Freud and Red Yume by them. The affirmation that dreams have something to say. Yes. I wasn't taught that in school. I didn't, I didn't hurt anyone around me say such things. I searched it out. And, you know, for all the time that I wasn't paying attention in school, suddenly became a student of psychology. Then also a student of religion. A student of human behavior, you know, watching it very closely. It had always done that as an actor in a sense.

1:04:44There I am on the lap of a schizophrenic grandmother, feeling okay with that kind of behavior. Why? Because it's hard in it. There's love in it. There's something in it. Me that's saying it's okay to be here. So I'm interested in what it is that says this is where you should be. Yeah. What is it that makes me feel that this is where I should be? I mean, such assurance. Yeah. So we're supported. We're not alone. No. No, we are blessed. Yes. It's a very merciful system. Absolutely. You mentioned paying attention to people for acting purposes. Tell me about the analysis part of like taking things apart to understand why is looking at this, making me feel this way, and how can I achieve that feeling with myself?

1:05:44What is it that they're doing that allows me to feel the way I feel? Well, I just get interested in a person. You know, watching a person. I love people watching. And certain people just the way this person's walking, way this person's stressed, way this person's behavior not here in the open. I got a Disneyland. Lots of people there. Take my son, some of his friends. I love sitting and just watching all these people moving around. At the airports, I love watching people. I love watching people. It's my way of staying connected to myself in that, you know, here we are. It's one big humanity. Yeah.

1:06:27And the actor, well, I never took a person and created a character exactly from one particular person, an imitation of. I always felt, maybe through my grandmother, I felt akin to eccentricity. The freaks. And Kramer is an ultimate freak who happened to fit into primetime television. Thank goodness for that. That's a freaky, freaky character. Yeah. I've always been of the freak. I say of the Pryprus, who is the in Greek times the deity of freaks. And the fools are part of freedom. Weird. Weird stuff going out in front of people and behaving in such, such way. It's eccentric, it's different. People pay a lot of money to see these fools.

1:07:25Break it all up. Rather, Dionysium, isn't it? Really, they're breaking it all apart. Yeah. And the eccentric, to me, always breaks into the normal. Breaks into the ordinary. Yeah. And I'm always been fascinated with the extraordinary. Yeah. And I think they also often have more truth about them than the normal. Well, certainly a recognition of differences. Everybody's into being the same. Then this Almighty truth breaks in and it's different. It's all used to works that way, isn't it? Hero myths or whatever. Somebody comes along, it's just different. People can be frightened of it and want to destroy it.

1:08:08Well, what the fuck is this? Usually. No, that's the standard. You think so, yeah. Well, I know so. Yeah, okay, yeah. Probably so, I haven't really thought about that. I think you're kind of correct. I think you're all the way correct. Think about also people who come and unusually preach love. Martin Luther King, Jesus, Gandhi. They all get assassinated. Yeah. Yeah. People feel so threatened by something to me that which is rather normal, but it is extraordinary when one person can carry that whole truth and be articulate enough to deliver it for all of us to hear how you respond to it. Okay, I wouldn't do away with the person.

1:08:50I'd like to know more and you know, keep that channel on. Yeah. Keep that channel on. I always feel that way too when somebody big comes along with a very extraordinary form of evil. I'd say, let's put them on a talk show. Let's not do away with them. Yeah. Let's not lock them up. Let's bring them out here. Let's learn about them. You certainly don't want to silence them. No, we got to learn about ourselves. Absolutely. This is a shadow. This is us. Let's look at this very, very closely. How else are we going to understand it? We don't want to destroy it. We want to take a good look at it. You know, we got to be safe about it, you know.

1:09:23Absolutely. But I'd like to look at that. I think I would, you would deepen my own relationship. I've had dreams where crazy, crazy figures can appear.

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1:10:57Do you think that the cream or character from the beginning was meant to be as much of a breakout star as he turned out to be? I didn't see any of that coming. I knew I was on the right track because I could hear the laughs in the audience, and I was feeling really good. And I really got into the swing of it. I knew that this is right. In the early episodes, was it a small part? Small. And then I... Was cream in every single episode? No, it was an evolution to this character. It took about 13 episodes. It really starts to step into it. The hair, the way he dressed, the shoes, all that I had to find, all that is...

1:11:38It's very, very important to me. I just don't put something on. The character got more popular. Did the character get more time in the stories? Yeah, I think so. If it fit in more to things, you could see the camera there. Character started to get big and useful as a comedic device. Very, very useful. I used to button up a lot of the scenes. You could use that character to really button up things. I was very insecure in the beginning of all that because I wasn't sure if I was going to arrive. I can't say that I'm in control of everything or I can see around corners. In the process, it was a process.

1:12:20I just wasn't sure just what the outcome was going to be, but I was quite open. I don't think you can ever be sure what the outcome is going to be. That's real. Even when the outcome is there, I'm still striving to sustain. I'm not sure if I'm going to sustain the force of such a character for so many years. When popularity set in, oh my God, everywhere I go, I'm cramour. Yeah. Years and years of this. What's it like walking into a restaurant and getting applause in your normal life? Yeah, it was a good feeling. Was it always good? Pretty much so, yeah. That's good. I never had anyone say what the hell?

1:12:59Get that character off television. Although the networks were a little concerned in the beginning. When I started to do the hair, they started wondering if the character was going to come across as being too crazy. Now, Jerry set them straight on that one. We're doing comedy. You who? You who? Jerry was always supportive? Absolutely. Great. The whole time, yeah. Like when I talked about doing the physical comedy, I came up an idea for how to do that. Jerry said, this is where we're going to go. Just listen to what Michael wants to do in the construction of the sets and the blocking of the scene and everything I had.

1:13:35Everyone's attention. That's amazing. Yeah. But you know, Jerry saw me on the tonight show doing a character and called Blair and said, it's got to be Michael Richards. Wow. And he knew of me from Fridays and he knew of me as I knew him. I would assume your way in was through Larry because of Fridays. No. Larry knew of my work and the capacity to develop characters knows that I'm sort of an eccentricity specialist. And they needed a really eccentric character next door. But when Jerry had seen me on the tonight show, I sort of landed the gig. But I still had to go through the throws of three auditions before network because the network wasn't too sure of me.

1:14:16Because I had a show a year before for NBC. I wasn't a star of the show, but I was supportive. And since that show was canceled, anybody on that show isn't going to get another show, at least not right away. So when I went in, I was sure that the NBC didn't want me, but I didn't care. I was happy to be in the presence of Jerry and Larry. I just went in like I was doing stand up. I just blew everything open when I was in the room. I didn't even care about the dialogue. I was fooling around, moving in around, doing headstands, fooling around with some chair behind the desk, goofing around around.

1:14:47Because I knew what I'm going to give them is a goofball. When you went on the tonight show, was it with Carson? No, it was with Jay. Jay was just coming into things. They were letting him have a whole week with Jay Leno, two weeks. And so Jay called me and said that you don't own that character you used to do on Fridays. You know, you know, I think funny, you want to do it that I think maybe we all do a sketch. I said, yeah, sure, come over. We'll talk about it. So we did. We settled around a few ideas and I came up with the weightlifting guy. And then we improvised it. And that's something I just saw Jay just two weeks ago.

1:15:24We were talking about this. And I said, you're on the line. They're considering you to be the host of the tonight show. You bring me out. We have no script and we're going to improvise for six minutes. I said, you know, Jay, that was lovely. Because I had enough confidence in all I'm going to step in character. And that character is going to go. I'll bring in some things of weightlifting, barbed thing and a row machine and a few props. And Jay didn't know what I was going to do. And I didn't know what he was going to say. There was no word here. So what came in with this stuff? He introduced me.

1:15:56We're on live. Proud the country and amazing. Isn't that amazing the trust in the in ourselves? Yeah. The confidence in ourselves. Doing, doing, doing. I've been years doing this. So Jay, Jay, been doing stand up for a long, long time. So after a period of time, you just get that confidence. You have that level of proficiency. It just comes with doing, doing, doing. Buck up. You got it. Stay with it. And then when you come in and you're in a situation like, you got six minutes. Let it go, baby. How different is audience to audience in terms of reaction? They're different late at night. A lot of drinking.

1:16:36Ooh, yeah. I used to play, get wild, get crazy. And have fun with it. Now, Karlin, you know, he told me he said he'd never played to a house that had been drinking. He liked to go on very, very early when he was at the magic, comedy magic club in her most of beach. He'd like to go up around 830. When he knows everybody's sober because he thinks he's going to get a cleaner laugh. And he loved to play theaters. He didn't want to be. So that's a different kind of own audience because people aren't coming in and drinking while you're working. They're coming in to see performance as a theater, you know, as usually that kind of venue.

1:17:11Do you feel like your roots go back to like Vodville? Yeah. Well, I used to see all those performers on early television. They'd all come out of Vodville, you know, all those guys. And just in now to the format of movies and TV, early TV, especially TV, or radio, I'm really, you know, Vodville, you know, the knockabouts. I had them, I was 12, 12 years old and this man, he was a Mason. He was a Freemason. He was dating my mother. And he took me to the American Legion. I went in there and I watched old Vodvilleians. This was like in the 60s. They still had to react. These guys, I like, I watch like eight of them.

1:17:57Wow. And they were all doing physical comedy and banging fall off the stage, doing one guy had a funny walk with his butt sticking out. I think I took that for the character dick. I had to walk around with my butt kind of sticking out, you know? So that's very funny the way he's contorting his body and walking around. So freakish. The audience was holy. I think I assimilated some of that. Do you ever get hurt doing physical human? I had a bag of protective gear. I was an honorary member of this stuff ends association. Sometimes I would call these guys in. I'm going to run around or run away lawnmower and assure I was doing a Marblewood manor.

1:18:35I said, I want to hit this wall and go right over the top of this lawnmower and land on the top of it. So we had to take the blade off and we rigged this thing up. I had a special back brace put on. So I was paying attention. And then from these guys, I'd learn more about how to take a fall. Really take a fall. I had a lot of padding on when I was a drummer. Even when I didn't know that I was going to be doing in a physical comic because sometimes I would. Sometimes I throw something in. Nobody knew that was coming. Take a bang in the door or a trip or whatever. I got to watch my knees. I wear a hip girdle or a wherever.

1:19:10Yeah.

1:19:13Fascinating. Is it youth? No, absolutely because it tells you how intentional the work was that you would be prepared to take a fall. Even when you weren't planning to take a fall. Be careful. But because you know this is in my vocabulary. I want to be free enough to do anything. Because I never rehearse this stuff. I'd save it for camera. I know I'm going to do something or a door. I'm going to go over the couch. I'm going to take a fall over by that store or something. And I'd wait until that time and gear up for it. Because I didn't know quite how the fall to make it look. I never rehearse too much of this.

1:19:49Just to keep it fresh and natural. But you know, red skeleton was a mentor. I knew red. Red was a great knockabout. And red and I was saying, and his knees were all wrecked. And he said he used to stuff paper in his pants and ship. And he said, your wrecked his knees doing all these pratfalls. I said, well, you know, you didn't have knee. They didn't have that kind of gear. That's wonderful protective gear. You can wear a sport gear pretty much. But I had a hip harness made for me. Through a stuntman I knew to the association. He made this up for me. That's amazing. They introduced me some really neat stuff.

1:20:24There's one scene where little Mickey and I went to the sun. I said, you know, we got to have Mickey always slapping me around. He loses his temper and he'll jump on me and just kick my ass. I think it's very funny. We have little Mickey just kicking the shit out of the cramory. This is, this trust me. This is going to be funny. But we had to block these scenes out because, you know, one, I wanted Mickey to come running at me and throw his whole body and then I'm going to go over and I want him to be, I want my legs to go straight up and just have his body right on my and hit that floor. And I'm sitting on a crate.

1:20:54So when he hits me, I've got this, this far I'm going to go down on that floor. Well, I had a piece of steel back brace made for that take. Just for that take. Wow. And it's, it's a lovely piece of business. That's so cool. To watch Danny just come try. And I remember sweet Danny said such a hard after we did it. And the honest laughing so over it and cut we're doing the scene. Danny's kind of climbing off me and looks at you. Is he alright? Is something fine Danny? Wow, we did. It's good. Work, work, very way he goes. No, but are you alright? I said, yeah, yeah, I'm alright. Are you alright? Because yeah, I'm alright.

1:21:28If you're alright, he was so concerned. Wow. The way he looked at me. It's beautiful. Did you feel like you always had to top yourself week to week? Did you feel like well, last week I crashed into this thing. Next week I need to do something bigger. I was concerned about the material. I know a good script and even a better script. I'd see the vacillation. Most of the scripts are really great though. You know, I would take material that's not so hot, but I'd find ways to lift it. That's where I come up the... All kinds of little sounds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, little, little movements.

1:22:03I could close the scene up like that. Somebody say something weird and I'd have maybe a return line. I'd come up with a... Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, some kind of a look and that the... And some weird kind of a sound and so forth. And that would button it up. And then I'd just look at everyone and then they'd go, fine, let's move on. We don't need that line. We could get the line there. They just have to go out on up and on the lap. They do. I remember when he got into golf on the show. It was very funny. Good ol' Larry, who was into golf. Oh, yeah. Made Kramer a golfer. Yeah. But Kramer would just hit the balls into the ocean.

1:22:33On one episode. That was a good episode. Yeah. Old Jason, who had a photographic memory by the way. He could just learn scripts so fast. He'd get these big speeches. He'd know them in five minutes. Yeah. And he's going through that whole story about that... That whale. And now he got the ball out of the golf ball out of the whale. Yeah. And then he's holding up the balls of titles. And I have the blow line. I just got one line. What? Is that a title? You know, Andy. And... You know, just at one level. That's what I was feeling. Oh, God. Jason could tell those stories so well. Yeah. He had those monologues that would be like marvelous.

1:23:10He would think I'm that marvelous. So funny. So funny. I know, man. Unbelievable. Would you ever laugh during a scene or you were... No. Not my kind of training. Yeah. If I was ever in a scene and I looked away, somebody came in the room. Yeah. Let's say I'm performing before Stella. Yeah. She would just say, get out of my class. Wow. I mean, she... And that never happened, but I see her do that. And you're not focused. You're not concentrated. And also the mistake. I'm always after the mistake. So if there's a laugh, something goes wrong. I don't laugh. I pull. I keep straight on it. Work off of it because you don't know what that could happen.

1:23:48Yeah. It could turn into something good. Yeah. Absolutely. Somebody goes up. I always go, aw, shit. Because I'm curious to see where would that have gone to. Yeah. You pick something up. It fell out of your hand and hit the counter. They go, oh. And the cut. And then we're going to do the thing. I'm going, well, first of all, now we've got to do it again for the audience. They've already seen it seen up to this point. So it's not going to be as big a surprise to them. Probably not going to get as big a laugh because you're going to do that dialogue over again and in the meantime, who knows where that mistake where have gone.

1:24:17And if it was theater, you wouldn't get a second take. Shit. No. Can you imagine? Can we do that scene again?

1:24:29Between the highs and lows you've experienced in your life, do you feel like for the last few years you've found a sense of normalcy for yourself? Yeah. Karma. Do you feel good? Yeah. Great. Yeah. Was it difficult to stay grounded through controversy? Sometimes, yeah. That took a long time, a lot of a long time. Yeah. And listening, paying attention to my moods and taking note of how I'm feeling, certainly not going to blame, but just taking note of what I'm into. Usually I've brought about those kinds of situations. And so I have to take them out and see what the message is. There's a message in it all.

1:25:22How different is your experience of your character, depending on who you're playing against? Depending on the circumstances, my character will probably remain the same. But I find another side to the character in response to what the difference is that the other character is presenting, being adjustable, a well -rounded character can go on, particular character like Kramer, could be in just about any situation. And he stays Kramer, but would Kramer react differently depending on the input? Probably. Yeah, it'd be different mood, a different consideration, a different angle. Usually there's something you're after.

1:26:05I would create a lot of backstory to every character I was in. Would you know it or would you write it down? I would know it. I would just feel it. Sometimes I would write it down on the script. I would go through different scenes. And I'd say, okay, where's my intention here? Where have I come from? I'm coming in the room. Where have I come from? It's not in the script. But I got to know where I'm coming from. So when I come in, I've just been someplace. And when I'm going out that door, I got to know where I'm going. So maybe we apply that too in our everyday life, in the consideration of our backstory or motive or intention.

1:26:38Our thing's going on. We always have something we're stepping toward. I love the ritual of finding ground. So you've got something underneath you. So that whatever you step into, outside of the situation that sustains your kind of ritual, you're going to be able to hold your own. You're going to be able to hold up. I've had instances where I didn't hold up. In certain situations where I got knocked down. So I had to go into, okay, why? So you see, getting into backstory is getting into what's behind motive, what's behind anger, what's behind my shit? What's going on here? Again, such a merciful creation provides us with all of what we need to know.

1:27:23If we just take a look, if we're calm enough, if we're grounded enough, the answer is there.

1:27:35There's a lot of stories around us that have nothing to do with us. And we can get sucked up into those stories, or we can remain grounded in ourselves, not get pulled away by someone else's story. Yeah, you get mixed up. Yeah. And things get messy. I've fallen into other people's stories. It's been taken up by somebody else's shit. Yeah. And it's very messy. I call it being recruited, you know. If somebody's in a very really angry place, you're driving along and they've cut front of you and give you the bird. If you give them the whole, you touch a horn. Hey, wait a minute, I'm here. Let me know I'm here.

1:28:17And then they say, well, so what? Fuck you. You know, you can find something in you, go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then you go back off. Wait a minute. I don't want to get carried away. It is not my story. I do not want to get recruited by this person's story. Yeah, I love that word. It's a great word. It is good. It's clear. I mean, it really makes it clear. However, sometimes we're around great people, we want to kind of get caught up in the greatness of their story, or at least learn by it or know as much about it as possible, and then find that story within you. I read some way that you like to be underwater.

1:28:53Is that true? Yeah, I was a diver for many, many years, scuba diving. I used it as a form of meditation, Rick. I had a patio chair and about them in my pool. And it was weighted down, and I would have an aqua long. And I would go down there and sit in that patio chair for a half an hour, just really getting your breath fast.

1:29:20I used to do that when I was doing the Seinfeld show for instance, come home. And it would relax you. Relaxed me. Yeah. Put that pool to use. Yeah. Then I did diving, and that really relaxed me. Really relaxed me. Yeah, many people don't feel calm underwater. Yeah, that's true. It turns on some red flag of fear. Yeah. You know, I noticed that when I would sit quietly in the ocean, maybe at 20 feet, I'd find a rock just leaning down, get my buoyancy and just, if I'm down there for about 45 minutes, sometimes I do double tanks, I could stay down there for an hour, a little over an hour, 20 feet.

1:30:00The fish would come around. They would just circulate around me very slowly. And after about a half an hour, 30 feet, I'd have maybe 30 or 40 small fish just circulating around me. You'd say, what is that all about? Beautiful. And I'm just feeling the calm. And I'm in the realm. And I'm in the sea. And with a whole of all that, I get pretty quiet, too ground, very quickly. That sounds great. Would you say you feel more alive, alone, or in front of an audience?

1:30:35You've been given this some thought, having you. I'm alive in both directions. I'll tell you that. I spend a lot of a long time. The time is here. I have to, because you're so much going on. But do you long to be in front of an audience, or do you long to be alone? I think I long more to be alone. I have had to watch that carefully. But at my age of 75, I really enjoy my alone time. People said, oh, you got the book. You're making a comeback. What? No, no, no. This is not about that. Oh, work can come your way. You're going to get an agent. I go, well, that's not the goal wall. I just needed to get this book out of my system.

1:31:21I had to write this. And all these stories and all these routes I've taken to be alive. I think as I get older, I value the alone time more and more than ever. I feel very, very comfortable, because I see myself really very, very close to the whole of creation. It's a great gift. Did you learn anything about yourself through the book process? Any insights? Yeah, that I remember everything. I'm carrying the whole thing. It's all there, even though in the unconscious, whatever, I think you can refer to it as a collective unconscious that we're all in there. That's where I saw how conscious I really am.

1:32:10Do you ever think something is funny in the audience doesn't?

1:32:16No, that got me into some trouble. Tell me. For something that I thought could be funny. And I'm going to take the risk, because that's what I do. It is your job. Yeah, to me, that's my job. Get risky. That's what people are paying to come in and see. Because normally these things aren't set out in the street. There's a place for the fool. And what I've seen in the comedy club, these fools, if they were out on the street with Dean Jail so fast, it make your head spin. Absolutely. But we're up there to turn things upside down. Yeah. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But baby, when it works, it was worth the risk.

1:33:01Yeah. But when it doesn't work, it hurts. But that hurt, it's like a pressure that turns the carbon into a diamond. You got to hurt. They're suffering. I live here in Pacific Palisades, you know, and I know I can go down the corner and get a meal. I can buy my groceries. I live in a very nice home. But I know another place of the world. It gets pretty wild. Pretty shitty. And I still acknowledge the system. What we're all in the midst of. The ups and the downs, the light and the dark. It's a mystery. I do know in the midst of it, it's heart -making. How is dramatic acting different than comedy?

1:33:57Well, I think there's a brute in me. You know, it comes through that kind of character I could identify with the menacing one in dramatic actor. I've played a lot of villains, you know. To be in the place of the dramatic. How dramatic that is. How tragic that could be. The tussle. The depth of it. Certainly the actor having to go deep enough to make that tussle come true. I mean, in that you have to deliver a performance that's rather believable. I could welcome that because of my my respect for psychology. My respect for man. All the kinds of people that we are. Temperament. Dealing with mood.

1:34:41Magetation. In the realm of the drama. I played a lot of that when I was doing college theater, Kellarch, you know, tragic things. Shrojan women or the Bakai. Imagine exploring the meenatic spirit and then playing a figure that's going to be devoured by them. That Dionysian jaw coming about. I'm taking a bite out of you and swallowing you whole. How situations can do that to us. Being swallowed up by situations and then having to make your way out of them. Being digested. Coming out and feeling like you just. There's not much left except you begin to build yourself up once again. As a character.

1:35:30Building a character. Yeah. The difference. The other ones. It laughs at the whole process. It's almost more elevated. I think Nietzsche had a line there. He says, who can laugh and be elevated at the same time. He's speaking of death. Who can laugh and be elevated at the same time. I like that. Because the fool will laugh at death. The last that everything. Yeah. The dramas that you're consumed are taken in. I never understood that line but Jesus on the cross where he says, why has South Forsake in me? I said, something. Put that in there because anybody is going to go that far. You know, within the tragic.

1:36:14I mean, to let themselves be taken up by the tragic. Isn't going to say why it's not forsaken. They've already come in with they know exactly what's happening. And let's go boy, let's go. I always wondered that when you mentioned earlier about Martin Luther King of Gonday. They knew they were on the line. They knew what was coming. They knew what could happen. For sure. But they were capable. They were grounded. Yeah. In the arena. They were there for whatever was going to come. And when it came, it came. When you leave the set or the stage, can you completely leave the character behind or do some part of it always come back to you?

1:36:58That's where I'm at the bottom of the pool. You know, taking a breath. Yeah. I got to calm transition. That's the transition back to yourself. Come back home. Yeah. Wish my grandmother couldn't do.

1:37:40Thank you.