For actor Michael Richards, the ideas of play and imagination would largely come to define the characters he’d conjure up on screen and on stage.
As his new book Entrances and Exits describes in detail, Richards emerged from a broken home, navigating a complicated relationship with his mother and childhood without a father while spending significant time with his grandmother (who suffered from schizophrenia).
As a child, the city of Los Angeles provided a wide expanse, helping Richards develop both his imagination and idea of fantasy at a young age. Navigating the Baldwin Hills and more, Richards would ride his bicycle to the MGM Studio, sneaking under a fence to explore unused sets on the back lot.
That imagination would serve him well in his unorthodox approach to stand-up comedy, a medium he’d often tackle with virtually no prepared material, opting instead to build characters and interact with the audience, relying more on physical comedy and facial expressions than the usual joke/punchline set up and delivery.
Plucked from relative obscurity after only a few months of stage work at L.A. clubs like The Improv, Richards would soon focus on building characters on the ABC sketch comedy show Fridays from 1980 to ‘82, where he’d first work with future Seinfeld colleagues Larry David and Larry Charles.
“Stand-up is not really my deal. I’m not really a stand-up comic. I’ve always said, I’m more of a performance artist,” said Richards during a recent phone conversation. “Ultimately, I’m a character actor. I didn’t start out studying comedy. I was an actor doing plays. But I could do comedy,” he said. “Although, I struggled. And that’s in the book. I talk more specifically about struggling to get to Kramer. Because I was inventing a character from the ground up. Moves, the look, the ticks, the voice. I had the voice at a certain pitch. Everything was manufactured,” Richards explained. “When people met me in person outside the show, I was a bit awkward as myself. Because it was far from really being Kramer.”
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Entrances and Exits, now available in hardcover or as an audiobook via Permuted Press, is a well-written memoir that pulls back the curtain on Seinfeld like never before, with Richards, 74, utilizing four decades worth of journals to meticulously reveal a behind the scenes look at one of television’s most successful comedies as well as the curation and backstory of his iconic Cosmo Kramer character.
In his foreword, Jerry Seinfeld describes an almost obsessive approach to comedy where words like “kill” and “die” are used literally. And the book itself is unflinching in its examination of celebrity, with Richards detailing the inferiority and self-doubt he often dealt with despite the success as well as what he learned following an infamous on stage outburst at The Laugh Factory in 2006 which caused him to both retreat from the spotlight and reflect.
I spoke with Michael Richards about the importance of a strong backstory, curating Kramer, navigating Seinfeld and what he’s learned about himself crafting Entrances and Exits over the course of more than three years. Highlights from a pair of phone conversations, edited for length and clarity, follow below.
Jim Ryan: Well, the postlogue says you worked on the book for about three and a half years. Was it born out of the pandemic? Where did the idea sort of start for you?
Michael Richards: No. I had it in mind. And then a few people around me encouraged me to get it on. I had about 40 years of journals. I’m very big on that sort of thing. I was looking through it all and said, “Gee, I think I can get to a book here.”
When I started out, I thought it was just going to be a book about Seinfeld - but I started getting at the backstory. And started to see how in doing Seinfeld - well, becoming an actor - it goes back a ways that I had this sort of thing in me. And it took a drama class in junior high and what not to bring it out. I discovered what I was.
But it was with me even when I was a little boy. I think the way I would amuse my friends, and think up things that we could all do on our bikes or riding somewhere, I always had a sense for adventure and play - the idea of play. And I think acting really comes out of play. Because you play act a lot. Like when we were kids just on the street playing army or something, you know? Or sports, pretending who we may be while we’re playing baseball or football in a field somewhere. It’s acting.
Ryan: In the book, you tell the story about riding your bike and crawling under a fence as a child to explore the MGM studio lot. Television also looms large. You had a lot going on in your childhood. Were those forms of escape for you at an early age? How did that help you sort of build the idea of fantasy?
Richards: The idea of being on that back lot - behind things - that did fascinate me. And then when I saw Laurel and Hardy. They had shot so much of that in Culver City - and then Silver Lake too.
I had a babysitter. Because my mother worked full time and my grandmother was starting to take an exodus. The babysitter took me on a bus over to Silver Lake. And I recognized that area from Laurel and Hardy. From a young age, I just saw that kind of interconnection. I really felt that I was with Laurel and Hardy and that I was going to see them any day now - because they lived right there with me in Culver City.
I don’t know. I wasn’t escaping through fantasy - I was just expanding my sense for adventure. If anything, it adds to one’s life. I took walks along the railroad tracks or up in the Baldwin Hills. I spent a lot of time unto myself. But the views I had from up there just increased my interest in life. There was no escaping. It was just like, “Look at this big world I live in!” I had a feeling that it was all here to assist me in some way. There’s assistance in this.
Ryan: You mention Harpo Marx early in the book (as does Jerry in his foreword). You also hit on Red Skelton and Jacques Tati in terms of their physical comedy. Seeing that at such a young age, how would that kind of come to inform your idea of funny?
Richards: Well, they were making me laugh. So, I’m informed by laughter, you know?
And I think I took a lot of it. I didn’t realize it. It’s just the nature of my character. I mean, everybody had seen those - but it didn’t affect them as much as it affected me as a kid. I could amuse my friends.
So, the ha ha just came out of me as natural as, I suppose, breathing.
Ryan: Did that become kind of an introduction to live performance in a way?
Richards: Yeah, yeah. That was my biggest excitement when I was at The Improv, when I first started out: I could make people laugh without material.
I’d just get up on stage and start fooling around with a microphone. Or I’d pretend like I had just wandered around up there and I’m trying to figure out where I am or something. They used to have a piano up there. I used to play practically nothing - but then walk around feeling like I’m accomplished, you know? (Laughs) Just weird, funny, off-the-cuff things. Which is very much what life is: kind of off-the-cuff. There was my respect for the irrational. And the things that just pop up. There I am on stage and these things are just popping up. And I’m discovering myself in this manner.
It was with me with my friends. But now I’m standing on a stage in front of an audience, goofing around and getting the laughs. An amazing amount of attention occurred. I was quickly made irregular. And then I had some very powerful people in Hollywood take an interest in me, noting and informing me that I’ve got a career going on here. This is a great possibility. They wanted to invest their time in me. And that was of great assistance. And that's probably why I ended up on Fridays so soon.
Anyway, it’s just marvelous how these things arise. It’s the way that life is about - it’s here to assist us. And we just have to move toward it. And all else will arise as it should be.
Ryan: We’re at this point now with stand-up comedy where a lot of comics seem to be giving the audience a pretty intimate glimpse into their lives and goings on. I know that’s a part that was difficult for you as a stand-up: letting that authentic self come through in your act. Do you watch any comics now where they deliver stories or jokes in a more personal style like that?
Richards: Well, a lot of the comics would just take situations out of their lives and talk about it.
I remember Louie Anderson. I was such a huge fan of his at the time that he was working and building his act. He would talk about his father. And his brother. How he got along with his dad. And it was very personal. Insightful. These considerations about himself as he came up as a kid with his family. I didn’t do that. I was always in a character. A lot of the times, I was in character.
I remember many times late at night, I would just come up onstage wearing a bathrobe. And I had a cigar. And I would just play some weirdo who lives in the neighborhood that nobody likes. Kids would be walking across his front yard, which he just planted. And he’d be standing there at like a screen door complaining about the kids in the neighborhood. I had a voice for it and everything. “Bunch of brats…” He would just go on. I’d sit there and take that character for a walk for maybe ten minutes. And then just put the robe away and put the cigar down and just go into whatever else I’m doing.
But I used to take characters for a walk a lot. Being in character - in character, fooling around with characters and these antics and so forth that were taking place on stage - it caused Charlie Joffe to say to me, “You know, I think the audience would like to see you every once in a while…” And I said, “Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t know if that will be funny.” And he said, “It doesn’t have to be. Just come out and meet them every once in a while. Because, eventually, you’re going to have to come out and let the audience see you. They want to meet you. They want to see the guy there on stage as well as all of these wonderful characters and the shenanigans you’re doing up there.” But I never really felt comfortable with that as much as I did just being inside a character.
That’s why Fridays was such a good vehicle for me. Because all I could do for three years was just invent characters and play characters.
Ryan: There were a couple of early quotes that jumped out at me in the book, because they seemed almost foreboding in a way: “Upset and turmoil are with me all the time. It’s the basis of comedy.” “Stand-up comedy, which is live and a form of theater, is, for me, usually improvisational and raw, a place where I let it all out, like a dog off leash…” Those quotes sort of foreshadow what’s to come. How visceral an experience for you is stand-up comedy?
Richards: Yeah. I was always dangerous on stage. From the get-go. Especially when I started out at The Improv. Many nights, I would go up there without any material - or I’d have what I’m gonna do but I’d leave it and just start fooling around on stage or fooling around with someone in the audience.
It all came quite naturally. At the time, Robin [Williams] was at the club. And Andy Kaufman. And people had felt that I was like a cross between Robin and Andy at one point. Very strange, weird, avant-garde mannerisms. The physical work. The faces. And just the content that would come about through characters. It was so free-form and out there. I had a place in between the headliners who were already established at the club. So, when I came in, I fit right in to so much of the off-the-cuff work that was happening on stage at that time.
Improvising and moving around and creating, I was in search of an act, you know? Building that. And I was pretty good at being real loose on stage. It was working out so well for me that I had the likes of Charlie Joffe picking me up after only about three months of working in the comedy clubs. Six months later, I’m on a sketch comedy show called Fridays for three years. So, I came in fast. And I worked very, very loose.
Most of the time it worked. But there were nights where I bombed and it just didn’t really go anywhere. The thing is I was exploring some material - and trying to stretch it out. It’s all just part of that process of being in the club: you rise and you fall. Like surfers. You may be a pretty good rider out there on the waves - but you do get wiped out.
Of course The Laugh Factory, that was the ultimate wipe out wasn’t it?
Ryan: Unfortunately, it was. It’s kind of fascinating to look back on now. Because, at that point, you’re at the precipice of what’s about to become a very strange time for comedy: which is the advent of the smart phone. Suddenly, it becomes virtually impossible for anything to happen on a stage without someone recording it and uploading it on YouTube. Intent begins mattering less. 2006 is sort of the beginning of that. What was it like starting to watch that in real time?
Richards: You know, I didn’t have my mind on it. I should have - but I didn’t. It was sort of a first. I mean, you’re not allowed to photograph or record the comics in the clubs anyway. That’s on the ticket - not that I thought about that much.
When I’m on stage, I’m in motion. But it was late that night and I just got tripped up by what was said to me. I tried to make it into something, fooling around with the N-word, believe it or not. Because I really thought I could make that into something while somewhat in character. I mean, I was in character somewhat. Throwing the N-word out? I thought it was just so preposterous. But it just went bad from there. And then an argument was taking place. And then the two of us were just saying awful things to each other - just awful, awful things. And that was a bad, bad night. I just didn’t have the control to bring it back to humor - which is what I’m up there supposed to be doing, right?
I’m sorry. I still to this day am very, very sorry about that bad, bad night. Because I do admit, I was at fault. I messed up. I said awful things. No matter what was said to me.
I preferred to step back and really just take some real time off.
Ryan: You wrote about finding photography around that time. You described the idea of finding the light even in the dark. What did photography teach you at that point in your life?
Richards: Well, you know, I was talking earlier about being assisted by life - that life is here to assist us. You go up and you go down. Like a pencil, you have a point and you have an eraser on the other end. We always have a chance to improve ourselves, which is really glorious, as I discovered doing Seinfeld - how I was making that character better and better, particularly over the first 12 episodes. I could sense the improvement. I could sense that there’s more to get at here. That was rather exciting.
Of course, it put a lot of pressure on me. Because I wasn’t sure if I was going to have the time. Even though I felt the show was going on, giving us just a four show [first season] pick up [following the pilot episode] kind of concerned me. I wasn’t sure. “Am I going to have enough time to make it here and get into the character?” Because the network was perplexed. They didn’t like the show - but the reviews were good. So, they kept us around - and didn’t really know what we were becoming. So strange.
Ryan: It seems like you had a lot of freedom in your approach to and curation of the Kramer character. In terms of comedic reinvention in each episode, Jerry references Bugs Bunny, Harpo Marx and Stan Laurel in his foreword. I know backstory is important to you. How did you sort of approach that idea of reinventing the Kramer character, building upon his backstory consistently over the course of 180 episodes?
Richards: It got easier and easier. Because I would just imagine. The actor and his imagination.
I know that in the way of method acting, for instance, you put yourself in a situation and you draw off of that experience. If you’re playing a criminal, maybe you spend some time around criminals or in a jail setting in the method world. And I realized I could use a lot of imagination to just invent backstories - because it just gave me a bigger presence when I was standing around in the apartment or something. Or when I came in. I didn’t come in from nowhere. I always had something kind of going on in my head.
It’s all play. I could just think that I’m coming in for some paper towels. Or I’m just coming in because I thought I heard a girl’s voice. “Maybe there’s another girl in Jerry’s apartment? I’d like to meet somebody. I’ve been in my apartment so long right now, I’ve got to get out. I’ve got to get out! Yeah, let’s go over to Jerry’s - and let’s get there quick! Because something’s gonna come up! And I’m really up for doing something right now. Right now! I’ve got to get at something right now!” So, little things like that.
I was coming from somewhere. It just filled out my character. I felt it just gave me some presence. I’m alive from the moment I come in, with where I’ve been and where I’m going.
Even when I’m leaving [Jerry’s] apartment, I’d have something going on in my head. “I don’t know, maybe I’ll go look at some chickens. I’m thinking of maybe raising some chickens in my apartment so I can have fresh eggs.” Something. Whatever. Anything. And I kind of hold onto that and keep it to myself.
Of course, it’s not in the script - but it’s just a way of filling out the character.
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Ryan: I know as part of your writing process, you re-watched all nine seasons of Seinfeld chronologically with your son. What did you learn during that? Did anything surprise you?
Richards: Well, I was surprised that I hadn’t seen so many of these shows. And I was so objective. All of this time has gone by and I was just able to watch the show like somebody else watching the show - for the first time. And I was so enjoying it.
And then just feeling so proud. “Wow. I’m really a part of something great here.” All of this wonderful acting and terrific writing. And I love the way the show was shot. All of those location scenes that we did. That was just joy.
And then, to be with my son - who’s just laughing away - and seeing the show through his eyes? That was pure joy.
But in watching the shows, I was amazed at how much I remembered that I thought I had forgotten. What complications came up. Where my head was at in working with the dialogue I had. How I was going to make it funny. How I was going to put a spin on that dialogue - which you could really do with a character like Kramer. All of the way through, in the course of writing this book, how much was coming up in me, I remembered everything.
It’s really extraordinary. It’s really something existentially. We carry everything we’ve done.
Ryan: I remember reading in the book how you didn’t sign with a manager right away. Even at the heart of your fame, you were handling endorsem*nt opportunities yourself. How important was it to keep a little closer eye on that business side in that way?
Richards: Most of Seinfeld, I had no agent. And I didn’t really care to have one. Because there was just so much coming at me.
It’s funny. But, intuitively, I felt that the show was going to stick around. In the beginning, I couldn’t say for sure - but I felt that there was something here. I certainly couldn’t predict it was going to become this successful.
Jerry was quite confident we were going to be around. Of course, he didn’t know it was going to become as successful as it did either. 35 million people a week watching… That was a phenomena that had us all scratching our heads. But we knew we were funny. We knew that we were doing a good show. Because all of us had been around the block. We were all very experienced. So, we knew inside that we were doing it right.
Although, I struggled. And that’s in the book. I talk more specifically about struggling to get to Kramer. Because I was inventing a character from the ground up. Moves, the look, the ticks, the voice. I had the voice at a certain pitch. Everything was manufactured.
When people met me in person outside the show, I was a bit awkward as myself. Because it was far from really being Kramer.
Ryan: You write in the book that “coming out as myself, sharing the person behind the mask, will take some time to get to. Actually, a long time. All the way up to the writing of this book.” What did you learn about yourself in the process of writing Entrances and Exits?
Richards: Oh, there’s a trust. There’s more of a confidence. I was always struggling to reach something - particularly in doing Seinfeld. There was still a struggle - even when I arrived and I had Kramer’s shoes on so to speak. When I finally found the shoes that I was going to have that character wear, I was complete. It took me a little while to do so. And then the slide - the way I came into Jerry’s apartment - was on. “The K-Man has arrived!” But getting to the man behind the K-Man, getting to the man behind the actor and the persona, getting to a greater authenticity… “Who is this guy?” Standing on this planet for the amount of time I have, those are the questions that started to come in on me.
I suppose it started at that period that they call the midlife. A kind of crisis? Well, yeah - I was kind of in life and out of life in that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue doing acting. That was the start. And then what happened at the club, that was the push, actually, that I needed to take the mask off - take everything off now and just spend some real time with myself traveling, reading, writing and listening. Oh, a lot of listening - to mood, to idea. Watching myself with my family - my son, friends. Just watching myself. Taking myself for a walk and just seeing how I am apart from show business.
And it drew me into nature. I thought that was sort of a corresponding to a more natural side of myself. I started to appreciate existence: earth, moon, sun. I was spending a lot of time in the natural world - and began to see my face in it. And then felt the connection between nature and myself being so interrelated. And that was a tremendous affirmation that I’m at one with authenticity.
Later, later, later in the years - certainly in my second half of the life - I was more interested in being a person. And I think that now that I’m coming out with this book, I’ll probably be more out in the open as myself and certainly feeling more comfortable as myself - rather than feeling like I have to entertain everybody and make everybody laugh every time I come out and say “How do you do?”
