Robin Williams was perhaps the greatest comedic actor of all time. His frenetic, ad-libbing style and stream-of-consciousness delivery set him apart from other comedic actors of his generation. All a director had to do was give Williams the plot points and some basic dialogue and let him do the rest. Much of the results are movie magic.
Williams starred in some of the most iconic films of the era. From “Good Morning, Vietnam” to “Good Will Hunting,” almost every film Williams was in was box office gold. Little did anyone know at the time, but Williams would eventually succumb to depression and a rare disorder called Lewy Body dementia.
The latter illness literally made it impossible for the struggling comedy legend to feel happiness. It wasn’t diagnosed until after his death at 63 in 2014 from suicide. Little is known today about Lewy Body Dementia, but William’s legacy lives on in his movies.
Recently, perhaps William’s most beloved classic, Mrs. Doubtfire, is again in the spotlight. The 1993 comedy is about a newly divorced dad who goes to extreme measures to spend time with his kids, and some wild details are being revealed by the movie’s director, Chris Columbus.
Apparently, Williams did so much improv during the filming of the legendary movie that the production team ended up with more than 2 million feet of film. On the 30th anniversary of the movie, Columbus talked about the experience of working with the legendary Robin Williams.
Columbus said: “Early on in the process, he went to me: ‘Hey boss, the way I like to work, if you’re up for it, is I’ll give you three or four scripted takes, and then let’s play.”‘ Columbus allowed Williams to improvise, and the results were memorable.
Columbus continued: “By saying that, what he meant was he wanted to improvise. And that’s exactly how we shot every scene. We would have exactly what was scripted, and then Robin would go off and it was something to behold.”
Williams delivered so much dialogue that the script director had trouble keeping up. Considering this was an era before digital technology, the directors were just using film. This resulted in William’s improvisation needing to be written down by hand, which was a daunting task.
Columbus continued: “Remember, this is the early 1990s, she wasn’t typing what he was saying. She was handwriting it and Robin would change every take. So Robin would go to a place where he couldn’t remember much of what he said. We would go to the script supervisor and ask her and sometimes she didn’t even get it all. Often, he would literally give us a completely different take than what we did doing the written takes.”
Such was the brilliance of Robin Williams. The only thing that hindered his genius was the technology; however, using current tech, the treasure trove of takes would be unlimited. Columbus concluded: “If it were today, we would never end. But back then, we were shooting film so once we were out of film in the camera, we would say to Robin: ‘We’re out of film.’ That happened on several occasions. It got to the point that I had to shoot the entire movie with four cameras to keep up with him. None of us knew what he was going to say when he got going and so I wanted a camera on the other actors to get their reactions.”
The resulting film is hilarious, touching, and one of the best comedies of its era. The cast was solid with Pierce Brosnan and Sally Field, but the comedic genius and frenetic style of Williams is what set it apart and made it so memorable.
"*" indicates required fields