"Why do I continue making movies? Making movies is better than cleaning toilets"

Klaus Kinski’s statement, “Why do I continue making movies? Making movies is better than cleaning toilets,” drips with biting honesty and wry humor. His words expose a fundamental, almost primal, calculation between artistic pursuit and the alternatives open to him. Beneath the crude simplicity of his answer is a surprising amount of candor about human motivation, particularly, how work is frequently not just a matter of passion but of comparative experience.

At face value, Kinski positions his profession against a much less glamorous form of labor. The comparison is intentionally stark: filmmaking, often glamorized as a lofty or noble endeavor, is stripped of such pretensions and placed on a pragmatic scale against an undesirable occupation. The reference to cleaning toilets is rooted in class consciousness, suggesting that, for Kinski, making films was at least partially an economic necessity, not an existential calling or a messianic artistic sacrifice. In this light, continuing to act wasn't wholly romantic, but rather a practical preference. When making movies is cast as the superior alternative, it’s not that filmmaking is his sole passion, but simply that the options he imagines are less appealing.

The sly humor of his response also highlights Kinski’s ambivalent attitude toward the film industry, which he was famously at odds with. His notorious outbursts and erratic behavior on set reinforce the impression that he saw filmmaking as a job, fraught with frustrations, but ultimately a step above menial labor. Creativity, fame, and money pale before the basic human desire for tolerable work.

Yet there’s defiant pride in this statement. Even as Kinski trivializes his profession, he signposts a performer’s agency to choose what kind of labor they endure. For all its exasperations, the exploitations and absurdities of cinema are preferable to the indignity and monotony he associates with more humble jobs. The statement becomes a dry, existential shrug, a shrug that resonates with anyone faced with less-than-ideal options, choosing the one that feels least degrading.