I was watching Aguirre, The Wrath of God earlier and remembered stories of the relationship between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski. I need to watch Herzog’s later documentary on the friendship – My Best Fiend – but for now this old article is amusing enough:
Kinski was saved by his dog from being burned to death in bed. It attacked Herzog as he crept up to set fire to the actor’s house. Kinski made several attempts to return the compliment.
Their love-hate feud is the stuff of legend, but only now are the full details coming to light. Herzog lays the friendship bare in a documentary film, My Good Fiend.
‘We had a great love, a great bond, but both of us planned to murder each other,’ he said after the premiere at the Cannes film festival. ‘Klaus was one of the greatest actors of the century, but he was also a monster and a great pestilence. Every single day I had to think of new ways of domesticating the beast.’
Herzog, who made five films with him often in extreme jungle locations said Kinski would scream abuse at him and tell him he would trample him into the mud.
Herzog refused to say how else he planned to kill Kinski. But, he did pull a gun on the actor on the set of Aguirre, Wrath Of God, and threatened to shoot him and then himself after Kinski tried to walk out.
Extracts 