Who Knew? Bill Hader Loves Klaus Kinski!

One of my favorite listens each week is The BS Report podcast with Bill Simmons on ESPN.com. I know what you're thinking, "Sports? Really?". Well, if my obsessions were strictly limited to Klaus Kinski, trash cinema and food I wouldn't be very well-rounded, would I?

And Simmons is hardly your typical sports talking head. Just a couple years younger than yours truly, Simmons doesn't work the sports beat or have the kind of unfettered access to players an coaches that broadcasters like to rub in our faces during games. Instead, Simmons is just as likely to interview an actor or comedian (like this week's great Patton Oswalt episode) as he is a fellow ESPN member, sports GM or athlete.

But you could have knocked me over with a feather during this week's interview with Saturday Night Live star and popular comic actor Bill Hader. While talking about their dinner the night before recording the podcast Simmons and Hader had the following exchange:

SIMMONS: "I didn't realize till dinner last night what a gigantic Klaus Kinski fan you are."
HADER: "Oh yeah, Klaus Kinski is amazing. MY BEST FIEND... I can watch that movie any time. It's like the ultimate..."

After that the conversation moves towards Hader's love for the autobiography of Roman Polanski and his Polanski impression, probably because Simmons doesn't know enough about Kinski to keep the conversation rolling.

But, so what? Between this and Anthony Bourdain's recent Kinski namecheck on an episode of No Reservations (which prompted one commentator on Bourdain's blog to write "My sides are still aching from laughing after the Klaus Kinski reference. Watching the monkeys I was thinking exactly that!") can we be entering a mainstream embrace of the German Olivier?