The unique way Francis Ford Coppola prepared Robin Williams for ‘Jack’
Uniting one of the greatest directors in cinema history with a powerhouse comedic talent beloved the world over should have realistically resulted in something special, but it would be a stretch to say the only collaboration between Francis Ford Coppola and Robin Williams came remotely close to realising its potential.
John Travolta was the first choice to play the title character in 1996’s family-friendly dramedy Jack, but Williams ended up with the role as part of his pay dispute with Disney stemming from Aladdin, with Mouse House subsidiary Buena Vista backing the production.
The star played a ten-year-old boy trapped in the body of a 40-year-old man as the result of a rare genetic condition, with the story detailing the ups and downs that come with trying to make sense of a childhood where Jack doesn’t look like anybody else, even though he’s got plenty of kindred spirits in terms of his childlike wonder and difficulties making sense of his surroundings.
It was a minor success at the box office, but nobody in their right mind would even suggest that Jack was what anybody wanted to see from the first-time pairing of Coppola and Williams. The filmmaker even acknowledged that the film was torn apart and savaged by critics, leaving him as one of the few people willing to defend it to the hilt.
Williams wasn’t even interested in starring initially after turning down the script but eventually had a change of heart when Coppola came on board. As he said himself, “Who could turn down a chance to work with The Godfather?” It wasn’t simply a case of the leading man strolling on set, hitting his marks, and giving a performance, though, with an unusual boot camp being operated during rehearsals.
“I thought, if I took Robin Williams, who is playing Jack, and seven nine-year-old boys and kept them ‘captive’, in a manner of speaking, living together at my ranch, it might work,” he explained to Christian Science Monitor. “The kids would become friends, and Robin would become reacquainted with the child within.”
It was undoubtedly a lot more whimsical than Coppola describing his intentions to hold an A-list superstar and a bunch of kids hostage for an extended period of time, with the director outlining that he didn’t only want Williams to familiarise himself with his younger co-stars, but live an authentic childhood experience he believed was key to the suspension of disbelief.
“I felt I was a drama counselor at summer camp again,” he continued. “For two weeks, all the kids, including Robin, did everything together. They swam, camped out overnight, joined Boy Scout activities, went shopping at Toys ‘R’ Us, ate together, had food fights, and slept in bunk beds. It was a wonderfully wild two weeks.”
Sweet and sentimental to an almost nauseating degree, Jack was a cloying and heavy-handed rumination on the age-old adage that it’s what’s on the inside that counts, but the bespoke boot camp did at least lend Williams’ turn an air of added authenticity.
