The only movie where Robin Williams felt like he didn’t have to improvise: “There’s no need to riff”
Any director who hired Robin Williams knew there was a high chance the script that convinced him to sign on the dotted line may not be worth the paper it was printed on once the legendary funnyman started heading off on tangents when the cameras were rolling.
The general rule of thumb was that there’d be at least one take filmed as written, then he could do his thing. It was a suitable compromise because if Williams’ improvisational asides didn’t match the tone of the picture, the filmmakers always had the straightforward scripted version to fall back on.
Of course, he was too quick-witted and too funny to rein in, with Williams’ spur-of-the-moment bursts of improvisation usually making the final cut. Mrs Doubtfire racked up millions of feet of film because he couldn’t be contained, while the recording sessions for Aladdin regularly devolved into something more akin to a stand-up routine than a standard vocal performance.
Even in his dramatic roles, Williams was encouraged, if not obligated, to go off-script. He improvised Matt Damon’s favourite line in Good Will Hunting, with Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society, Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King, and Penny Marshall’s Awakenings among his greatest and most celebrated performances, all of which saw him inject certain scenes and moments with his uncontrollable need to freestyle.
In his broadest comedic vehicles, there was no stopping him. However, even when he was playing it relatively straight, Williams always found a way to bring his innate ability to conjure better jokes off the cuff than the screenwriters could ever think of to the fore, with one exception.
Admittedly, playing a serial killer doesn’t lend itself too well to mugging for the cameras and dropping one-liners, but Williams revealed that he didn’t change a single line of dialogue in Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia. When UPI asked if he was ever tempted to indulge himself, he answered in the negative.
“No. Not at all,” he said. “There was never a temptation. Plus, it was Al, as in Pacino. He said, ‘Don’t do that’, and Christopher Nolan knew exactly what he wanted. There was an ease about this that I’ve only had once before with Gus Van Sant, where you get so relaxed. Even though you’re doing this intense stuff, you just feel at ease. There’s no need to riff.”
Nolan doesn’t seem like the kind of director who’d take too kindly to one of his stars flying off the handle when his productions are so meticulously staged and organised, especially when he admitted that he didn’t find Williams anywhere near as funny as most of the rest of the world.
Still, the actor could have tried if he wanted. After all, there was nothing to stop him from veering away from the lines he’d memorised in the heat of the moment, but Williams felt so relaxed with how Insomnia had been put together before a single frame had been shot that at no point did it ever cross his mind to improvise, which is a testament to the film.
