“I knew the reputation”: How Robin Williams tried and failed to star in ‘Midnight Run’
Even at the height of his power, Robin Williams still had a few roles that got away from him.
There isn’t another director in cinematic history who had a career as filled with highs and lows as Martin Brest, whose career began with promising comedy hits like Going in Style and Beverly Hills Cop, only to end with disastrous flops like Meet Joe Black and Gigli.
Although Brest received the most critical praise of his career for the Oscar-nominated drama Scent of a Woman, which won Al Pacino his much-delayed ‘Best Actor’ trophy, his best film was actually the 1988 buddy cop adventure Midnight Run.
The buddy adventure formula wasn’t one that Midnight Run invented, but few films have ever been as compelling a relationship study between two flawed characters. Robert De Niro gave one of his funniest, yet also most emotional, performances ever as the bounty hunter Jack Walsh, who is tasked with a mission to transport a high-value witness in a mafia trial, played by Jonathan Mardukas, a talkative, mild-mannered accountant who surprisingly ends up becoming Jack’s best friend.
Although the performance that Charles Grodin gave is one of the best comedy parts of all time, his casting was something that Brest had to fight for, and among those vying for the role was a young Robin Williams.
While he had not yet graduated to the next era of stardom that he would attain in the next decade, Williams was still an incredible draw who had earned a lifetime of goodwill because of his fame on the comedy circuit and television work on Mork & Mindy. He was about to earn his first Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Actor’ in Good Morning, Vietnam, but he still agreed to read for the role in front of Brest. There’s nothing to suggest that Williams in any way botched his audition, but Brest was so convinced in the casting of Grodin that he could not be deterred.
In what may have been a consequence of the casting standoff, Midnight Run was dropped by its original distribution and production partner, Paramount Pictures, only to be saved at the last minute by Universal. While none of the betting that Brest had made would have paid off if his two stars didn’t have chemistry, Grodin admitted early on in the process that he had a much better time working with De Niro than he had anticipated.
“I knew the reputation”, Grodin said, “I know people are always worried that working with him is going to be a depressing experience. You know very well that if he has a scene driving a bus, he’s going to spend five days on the road driving a bus, but it turned out well. He was having fun. He’s kind and sensitive, a gentleman.”
While De Niro had already earned two Oscars by this point in his career, Midnight Run showed that he had a sense of humour and was willing to lampoon his ‘tough guy’ image. Using that style of humour led to some of his biggest hits in the next two decades, including Wag the Dog, Analyze This, and Meet the Parents. While there’s no doubt that Williams would have given a funny performance, Grodin was so perfectly matched with De Niro that, in retrospect, it is hard to imagine anyone else doing a better job with the role.
