Robin Williams’ chaotic, burger-stealing first meeting with Julia Roberts: “Gotta freak her out for me”
Julia Roberts and Robin Williams were two of the biggest stars in Hollywood when they made their only movie together, Steven Spielberg’s Hook, but that wasn’t the first time they met.
Which was probably for the best, considering the former had a miserable time making the fantasy blockbuster. Rumours of behind-the-scenes discontent emerged from the set, and while Roberts ardently denied them, that didn’t mean she wasn’t having a torrid experience for other reasons.
Thanks to the visual effects required to seamlessly integrate her pint-sized Tinkerbell into the film, Roberts was forced to shoot her scenes alone, leaving her isolated and alienated. Fortunately, Williams was on hand to live up to his reputation as one of the industry’s kindest souls, becoming a rare beacon of light in a production the Pretty Woman breakout would rather forget.
That’s almost the opposite of what happened the first time they crossed paths, with Williams agreeing to a simple request made by Roberts’ brother, Eric, to bamboozle her for no other reason than shits and giggles. This was before she was even a well-known actor, never mind a household name, but he ensured the Georgia native would never forget her first trip to New York City.
After becoming a frequent customer at Cafe Central, which he described as a “hip, happening place where people loved to congregate,” the elder Roberts found himself rubbing shoulders with people like Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Andy Warhol, and Cher.
“I had just seen Robin Williams there several days earlier, and that had impressed her,” he wrote in his memoir Runaway Train: Or the Story of My Life So Far. “I told Robin, ‘My baby sister’s gonna be in town this week. Gotta freak her out for me.'” His response? “Yeah, no problem. OK.”
With the stage set, Roberts lured his younger sibling to Cafe Central with the promise of lunch, only for the effervescent comedian to lurk outside, waiting to strike. “I’m in one of the windows with Julie and we’re having a hamburger, and here comes Robin Williams,” he recalled. “He walks over, looks at her, opens the door, grabs her hamburger, and bolts out of the door.”
Understandably, she was very confused. “Was that Robin Williams?!” she asked. “I think it was, honey,” came the reply. “He took my hamburger!” He certainly did, and it must have been a headfuck for Roberts to be sitting there, minding her own business and munching a burger, only for one of the most famous actors on the planet to appear out of nowhere, steal it, and then vanish into the ether.
Not only did Williams live up to his promise to Roberts that he would freak out his sister, but he also got a free meal out of it. Or at least part of one, depending on how much of the burger she’d managed to eat before it was snatched away and scurried off into the bustling underbelly of New York. They say that first impressions matter, and they don’t come much weirder than that.
