The role that taught Robin Williams the most as an actor: “The opportunity was extraordinary”
It’s easy to canonise him, given the tragic nature of his death, but Robin Williams truly was one of the greats. The most remarkable thing about the late icon was his ability to switch from gut-busting comedy to tear-jerking drama at the drop of a hat. Flubber and Good Will Hunting came out within the space of a month, which is utterly bonkers. Very few people could have pulled that off, or equally the mixture of the two within the same film, like The Birdcage or Good Morning, Vietnam.
It wasn’t an easy road for Williams to reach this acting pedestal. His early film career includes horrors like Robert Altman’s Popeye and the terminally unfunny hitman comedy The Survivors. He had to go through a lot of muck to reach the mountaintop and learned a lot along the way, including on the set of one of his greatest-ever films: Dead Poets Society.
“I got to work with Peter Weir,” he told Barnes and Noble. “He’d say, ‘Push the envelope. Try to see what you can do that would affect the situation, but also look for something different. Don’t keep trying the same thing.’ That’s the kind of passion for creation that’s driven me since then, gotten me to take more chances.”
Weir, the Australian director also known for Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Year of Living Dangerously, and The Truman Show, had a huge impact on Williams’ career. His performance as John Keating is still one that fans return to as a favourite. The famous “O Captain! My Captain!” scene is enshrined in the very fabric of cinema itself. The movie also gave a leg-up to a young Ethan Hawke, who had a, shall we say, tempestuous relationship with his older co-star.
In terms of literally learning new things on the job, Williams credits the 1990s biopic Awakenings with improving his knowledge. “Awakenings was probably the closest thing to expanding into an area I didn’t know much about,” he said of the film, in which he stars as a doctor who discovers the restorative powers of a new drug on previously catatonic patients.
“The opportunity to meet Oliver Sacks, the man who I portray, was extraordinary,” he added. “I have had a connection with him ever since then. For me, what’s most fascinating about his work is the neurology, the study of the brain – it’s almost like quantum physics that he treats patients in that way. I’ve always been fascinated by that, so it’s probably had the biggest effect on me of anything I’ve done.”
As well as teaching him a thing or two about neuroscience, Awakenings also gave Williams the chance to work with extremely talented director Penny Marshall and to act alongside the one and only Robert de Niro. It was another instalment in the ‘Did you know Robin Williams can actually act?’ folder, and his performance as Dr Malcolm Sayer (a fictional character based on the real Dr Sacks) earned him a Golden Globe nomination for ‘Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama’.
Williams’ multi-faceted character opened countless opportunities for him to grow as both a performer and a person. He took his audience with him on all of these journeys, opening up windows into new worlds and making us all laugh and cry in the process.
