"I am actually 7 foot and and one-half inches tall. I say Seven two because it's easier. Unlike some tall skinny guys I am really "big" weighing around 350 pounds"
About this Quote
There is something disarmingly practical about Richard Kiel shaving an inch and a half off his own myth. “I say Seven two because it’s easier” punctures the showbiz tendency to inflate, turning extreme height into a mundane data point you can repeat to strangers without turning every conversation into a measuring contest. The line reads like a man managing his own legend in real time: yes, he’s enormous, but he’d rather control the narrative than be swallowed by it.
The real tell is the pivot from height to mass. Kiel isn’t just correcting trivia; he’s resisting a specific kind of typecasting. “Unlike some tall skinny guys I am really ‘big’” draws a boundary between spectacle and substance. Tallness can be gawky, even comic; “big” is physical authority. The quotes around “big” carry a wink - he knows the word is doing double duty, describing both body and screen presence. He’s not merely tall; he’s imposing in a way casting directors, stunt coordinators, and audiences immediately understand.
Context matters because Kiel’s career was built on scale, most famously as Jaws in the Bond films, where his size became a special effect before CGI. This quote functions like an actor’s quiet reclamation of craft: don’t reduce me to a measurement, but also don’t pretend the measurement isn’t part of the performance. It’s self-description as brand management, delivered with the plainspoken charm of someone who’s spent a lifetime answering the same question and decided to answer it on his own terms.
The real tell is the pivot from height to mass. Kiel isn’t just correcting trivia; he’s resisting a specific kind of typecasting. “Unlike some tall skinny guys I am really ‘big’” draws a boundary between spectacle and substance. Tallness can be gawky, even comic; “big” is physical authority. The quotes around “big” carry a wink - he knows the word is doing double duty, describing both body and screen presence. He’s not merely tall; he’s imposing in a way casting directors, stunt coordinators, and audiences immediately understand.
Context matters because Kiel’s career was built on scale, most famously as Jaws in the Bond films, where his size became a special effect before CGI. This quote functions like an actor’s quiet reclamation of craft: don’t reduce me to a measurement, but also don’t pretend the measurement isn’t part of the performance. It’s self-description as brand management, delivered with the plainspoken charm of someone who’s spent a lifetime answering the same question and decided to answer it on his own terms.
Quote Details
| Topic | Funny |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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