Trivia

He worked as a summer truck driver for the father of actor John C. Reilly in Illinois. Jenkins coincidentally met Reilly when the latter was four years old. The two later worked together in Hermanastros (2008).

Childhood crush was British actress Hayley Mills. He was so smitten with her, he dreamed of moving to England to become her gardener in the hope that she might fall in love with him one day.

Frequently works with the Farrelly Brothers and the Coen Brothers.

Studied theater at Illinois Wesleyan University.

One of several Rhode Island residents who have made films for the Farrelly Brothers. In four of their pictures, Richard even bought a house down the street from the brothers' childhood home in Cumberland, Rhode Island.

Father of daughter Sarah Pamela and son Andrew Dale with wife Sharon.

A member of the Trinity Repertory Company in Rhode Island for fifteen years, he appeared in such 1970s and 1980s Trinity Repertory productions as "Brother to Dragons," "Of Mice and Men," "True West," "American Buffalo" and "Waiting for Godot"; directed such later productions as "Tartuffe," "The Glass Menagerie", "The Miser" and Shekspeare's "Macbeth" and "Twelfth Night"; and was the company's artistic director for four years.

As of 2022, he has appeared in 4 films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Hannah y sus hermanas (1986), En primera plana (2015), La forma del agua (2017), and El callejón de las almas perdidas (2021), with Spotlight and The Shape of Water being winners in the category.

He attended school with Larry Shue and worked with James Pickering, according to an interview of February 20, 2009. Pickering acted as the Nerd in Shue's famous play, "The Nerd," adapted as "Laus im Pelz (1987)".

Parents: Dale Stevens and M. Elizabeth (Wheeler) Jenkins. Father was a dentist.

He has Welsh, English, Irish, and German ancestry.

Was considered for the role of Dr. David Morgenstern on Sala de urgencias (1994).

Shares the same birth name as Richard Burton.

In both Diario de un seductor (2011) and La forma del agua (2017), it is a plot point that his character wears an obvious wig.