Wealth & Money Quote by John Astin

John Astin talks about Poe the way a working actor talks about a cult classic: beloved in flashes, underpaid in reality, and permanently misread by the mainstream. The line toggles between two measures of success that rarely align in American culture: popularity versus appreciation. “At a certain point he was very popular” lands like a dry qualifier, the kind you use when fame came in spikes, tied to a single hit (“THE RAVEN”) rather than a stable career. Then Astin pivots to the economy of it: “never made the money.” It’s a blunt reminder that cultural impact and financial reward are often strangers, especially for artists who don’t fit the market’s preferred shape.

The most revealing move is how he frames “oddball” as both stigma and strategy. Astin doesn’t romanticize eccentricity as a quirky garnish; he treats it as a deliberate aesthetic position. Poe wasn’t merely misunderstood, he was committed to being misaligned. “But that was his point” reframes the usual pity narrative around the broke genius. The outsider status wasn’t collateral damage, it was the engine. You can hear Astin, an actor long associated with macabre comedy himself, recognizing a professional kinship: the performer who chooses the offbeat lane and accepts the cost.

Subtextually, it’s also a critique of how audiences consume darkness. They’ll celebrate the raven as a Halloween icon, admire the craft from a safe distance, but hesitate to reward or fully embrace the mind that made it. Astin is naming the bargain: fame, yes; belonging, no.