Richard Kind 'has no idea' what Beau Is Afraid is about (and he's in it!)

Beau Is Afraid stars Joaquin Phoenix as the film's titular (and troubled) lead character, whose seemingly simple quest to visit his mother Mona, played by Broadway legend Patti LuPone turns into an epic phantasmagorical nightmare.

Written and directed by Hereditary and Midsommar filmmaker Ari Aster, this three-hour tale may very well leave viewers scratching their heads once the credits roll. That was the reaction, after all, of actor Richard Kind — and he's in it! When EW asks the Spin City and Curb Your Enthusiasm star what he thought when he saw the finished film, Kind responds in, well, kind.

"Well, what the hell did you think?" he says. "You saw it. You saw the same thing I did and I have no idea! What did I think of the movie? Who the hell knows!"

Kayla Oaddams/WireImage Richard Kind

Kind was hired at short notice as Mona's lawyer, Dr. Cohen, who harangues Phoenix's character at length in the movie's final sequence. As a result, the actor didn't actually read the whole script before shooting his part in the film.

"Somebody was hired for my part and was unable to do it," he says. "So they brought me in. My meeting was on a Friday afternoon, and I got the part. So I started memorizing it Friday afternoon and was on set at seven in the morning in Montreal [on Monday]. It is literally, and I'm not kidding, a five-page monologue, which I could do, but it's hard, it's really hard. Now a lot of it is cut in the movie, but when I was doing it, I was 30 feet up on a platform. Patti is there, and it's all green screen, and I'm shouting at a pool with a boat in it, and Joaquin['s character] is in the boat, [but] Joaquin has no lines, so Joaquin ain't showing up for an eye-line. I'm just screaming to nobody. Because I only had two days to memorize it, I didn't have the luxury of reading the script."

"After I did the movie, I was so intrigued," he continues. "I said, I'm not reading the script, I'm going to see the movie."

Takashi Seida/A24 Joaquin Phoenix in 'Beau Is Afraid'

Despite his confusion, or maybe because of it, the actor enjoyed what he saw.

"I loved it. It made me think," he says. "You know, there's a famous story that when Rock Hudson saw 2001, he walks up the aisle saying, 'This is horrible, this is crap, this is terrible!' I mean, he cursed that movie. That's not the movies that Rock Hudson made. Not that Rock Hudson movies were bad, but there's room for Stanley Kubrick. Not that Marvel movies, or great movies, Scorsese movies, are bad, but there's room for an Ari Aster."

Kind has also filmed a part in another unusual-sounding film, Monsters of California. Directed by Blink-182 singer-guitarist Tom DeLonge, the movie concerns a group of friends who search for meaning in a barrage of mysterious paranormal events (that may have ties to deep government secrets) plaguing the Los Angeles area.

"That was nuts!" Kind says of working on the film, which was bought by Screen Media last year. "Tom DeLonge is a forty-something guy who lives his life like a 16-year-old. He's just excited. He's excited about aliens, he's excited about rock, he's excited about skateboarding, he's excited about everything. He was delightful. I am a different type of actor. I'm memorizing my lines and he'll be, 'Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the Pentagon has stuff on aliens.' And so I go, 'Tom! I'm working here! Don't get me started on your conspiracies and your aliens! Maybe they exist, maybe they don't! But, right now, I'm doing a movie!' It was wild."

Kind adds, "He's such a wonderful and giving guy. I had all of these suggestions about lines, and about certain scenes, he was easy with them all. He just let me go. He was great. I hope the movie comes out, I haven't seen it, but I loved him."

Beau Is Afraid will widely release on Friday. Watch the trailers for both it and Monsters of California below.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Related content:

• Ari Aster says Beau is Afraid is a 'Jewish Lord of the Rings but he's just going to his mom's house'

• Joaquin Phoenix sets first project post-Joker Oscar win with Midsommar director Ari Aster

• Jordan Peele chats with Ari Aster about his 'atrociously disturbing' horror film Midsommar in new Fangoria

• Todd Phillips shares first photo of Joaquin Phoenix on Joker: Folie à Deux set