"You can witness Klaus Kinski have a mood swing within a minute, within a sentence, as his mind conveys him from an infuriating image to a soothing one to a humorous one. If you watch his face while he speaks, you will see it become a mask of ire, his glance menacing as he spits out words of contempt and outrage. Then suddenly, there'll be a smile of such gentleness that something will constrict in your chest."
Klaus Kinski is Marcelle Clements' enigmatic profile of the enigmatic German actor, who - possessed by an unnamable "thing", which Kinski himself describes as an ability to "incarnate" - starred in more than 130 films, even as the very "thing" that allowed him to create continually devoured him. Klaus Kinski was originally published in Playboy, January 1985.