The two movies that screwed Robin Williams over: “Don’t pump me again, motherfuckers”
It seems like every actor in Hollywood has played at least one superhero or supervillain in a big-budget comic book extravaganza these days. After all, that has been driving business, so it would take a very confident – and financially secure – actor to stay away. Superhero movies have become so ubiquitous and frowned upon in the last couple of years, in fact, that it’s hard to remember a time when a star might have been excited about diving into the colourful world of comics. Take the late, great Robin Williams, though. He made it well known that he was desperate to play a couple of superhero characters over the years – and even felt betrayed by a studio when he found out he’d been used as bait to make another star sign up.
When Tim Burton’s Batman was coming together in the late 1980s, the talk of Tinseltown was who would play The Joker opposite Michael Keaton’s Dark Knight. Keaton was a controversial choice at the time because audiences knew him primarily as a comedic actor, so Warner Bros wanted to cast somebody undeniable as the Clown Prince of Crime. Ideally, they also wanted a star of Marlon Brando’s calibre that could lend prestige to the production as Brando had done for Superman: The Movie.
A number of actors were considered for the part, with the likes of Tim Curry, Ray Liotta, Brad Dourif, and John Lithgow all turning it down. In truth, though, Jack Nicholson was the iconic star Warner Bros truly wanted in the role, and he’d been the number-one choice since 1980. To the studio’s chagrin, though, it was hard to convince Nicholson to slather on white face paint, dye his hair green, and wear red lipstick. This meant the studio had to look elsewhere, but luckily for them, there was one recent Oscar nominee who was loudly lobbying for the part.
You see, Williams – who had just been nominated for ‘Best Actor’ at the 1988 Academy Awards for his performance in Good Morning, Vietnam – was a huge comics fan. He was a particular fan of Batman, though, and desperately wanted to be The Joker in the first serious big-screen adaptation of the Caped Crusader’s adventures. Instead of using the obvious enthusiasm of an A-list comic genius to play the part, though, WB saw an opportunity to use Williams as a bait and switch. It made it known to Nicholson’s people that Williams was interested, and if he didn’t sign up, the Dead Poets Society star was a shoo-in for the role.
Ultimately, WB’s dirty tactic worked, and Nicholson signed up to play The Joker. It was rumoured that Williams was extremely upset at being used like that, though, and he supposedly demanded a public apology from the studio before he’d ever work with them again. Whether that’s true or not is unclear, but when Williams spoke about the situation in 1993, it was obvious that he was hurt. He launched into a pitch-perfect impression of Nicholson, saying, “Listen, Robo, I’m real sorry about it. Maybe I’ll send you a couple of t-shirts, OK?” before sadly admitting that sometimes these things happen.
In this same interview, though, Williams noted, “Maybe there’ll be something else down the line. Maybe The Riddler” – and this would come to pass. In fact, when 1995’s Batman Forever was being written, screenwriter Lee Batchler admitted, “It was going to be Robin Williams. With The Riddler, we wrote it with Robin’s voice. He read our script and loved it. They just didn’t make the deal.”
Depending on who you believe, the reason Jim Carrey played The Riddler in the movie instead of Williams was one of two things. Either director Joel Schumacher couldn’t envision anyone else except Carrey in the role, or Williams had creative differences with the director over this over-the-top cartoonish version of the character. Writer Akiva Goldsman hinted to The Playlist that the latter was true when he admitted, “Ultimately, he and Joel didn’t see eye to eye.” There is a third option that can’t be discounted, though: Williams was still holding a grudge with the studio.
Whatever the case, after Christopher Nolan took over the franchise with 2005’s Batman Begins, it seemed certain Williams would finally get his chance to play a villain. Hell, he had worked with Nolan on 2002’s Insomnia, and told Empire, “I would work with Chris again in a second, playing anyone in anything. I’d play The Riddler in the next Batman, although…I’m a little hairy for tights.”
Sadly, though, Williams never got to play the Batman villain he longed for, despite having two close calls and an entire career of trying to will it into being. It also rankled him for a long time, because in that same Empire interview, he claimed that the Riddler situation may have been a lot closer to the underhanded Joker debacle than anyone realised.
“The Batman films have screwed me twice before,” Williams groused. “Years ago they offered me The Joker and then gave it to Jack Nicholson, then they offered me The Riddler and gave it to Jim Carrey. I’d be like, ‘Okay, is this a real offer? If it is, then the answer is yes. Don’t pump me again, motherfuckers.'”
