Robin Williams

[johnnygobbs]

I've rarely felt so affected by the death of a celebrity.  Robin Williams was such a prevalent and welcome part of my childhood, with his appearances in "Mork and Mindy", roles in 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen', 'Dead Poets Society', 'Hook', 'The Fisher King' and 'Mrs. Doubtfire', and regular and consistently hilarious appearances on British chat shows.  And as I got older I really appreciated his stand-up and turns in brilliant dramatic films like 'Good Morning Vietnam' (the film that probably utilised him to the best capacity), 'The World According to Garp' and later 'Good Will Hunting', and darker stuff like 'One Hour Photo', 'Insomnia' and 'World's Greatest Dad'.

I've posted in this section of the forum because it's notable that Williams came close to playing Batman villains, or at least was rumoured to be up for playing Batman villains, on about four occasions, his name having been associated with 'The Joker', 'The Penguin', 'The Riddler' and later 'Hugo Strange' at various points in his career.  As with the late, and also exceptionally talented, Philip Seymour Hoffman as 'The Penguin', it's a shame that we never got to see Williams play any of those characters.  I'm sure he'd have been amazing in any one of those roles.

Of course, he leaves behind a wonderful filmography, and I'm delighted that he was recognised by the Academy for 'Good Will Hunting' in 1997, a truly wonderful and poignant performance that seemed to come straight from the heart.

Rest in Peace Mork. 

[The Dark Knight]

I am glad you have made this thread.

Ever since I heard about Robin's death, it's all I've been thinking about. Others are the same. Therefore the important thing to do is to talk about it. Bottling it up inside can be deadly, as we know.

Robin was a one-in-a-billion talent. One of his biggest strengths was intuition. Being improvisational and not requiring a script, but his own mind. That is real funny - any old comedian can rehearse a series of jokes like a speech. But Robin could adapt and probably give you hundreds of different takes for one scene, right there on the spot. Case in point his voice-over work for Genie had about 30 hours worth of improvised material.

I've read towards the end, he didn't really want film roles. Mainly because the amount of time and effort he gave a production. Giving it his all, and being exhausted by the end of it. Now that is an artist, not simply an actor. He suffered for his craft and treated it seriously. But given his fear of money shortages, he signed up to projects.

I read his return to television, and its cancellation, hurt him. He expressed a lack of chemistry with the cast, and he would've been right. He was a perfectionist and wanted everything clicking, because he could meet that standard. And he knew when something was working, given his past success in film.

In his mind, he could've felt frustrated about returning to television too, given he started out there, being like a regression. And also if the product wasn't meeting his expectations, but felt he had to do it for the money. Towards the end, Robin was apparently sleeping 20 hours at a time, effectively locked in his bedroom with the curtains blacked out.

So it seems the man was in a tricky spot, mentally.

It's also a tricky spot for me, mentally. I'm left with the final footnote of Robin ending his life, when the majority of my memories are hilarious and great admiration. I think the good times will win out, but it does leave me melancholy. I suppose me feeling like that, a reaction to his death, gives you an indication as to what the guy was going through in life.

RIP.

[riddler]

I am glad you have made this thread.

Ever since I heard about Robin's death, it's all I've been thinking about. Others are the same. Therefore the important thing to do is to talk about it. Bottling it up inside can be deadly, as we know.

Robin was a one-in-a-billion talent. One of his biggest strengths was intuition. Being improvisational and not requiring a script, but his own mind. That is real funny - any old comedian can rehearse a series of jokes like a speech. But Robin could adapt and probably give you hundreds of different takes for one scene, right there on the spot. Case in point his voice-over work for Genie had about 30 hours worth of improvised material.

I've read towards the end, he didn't really want film roles. Mainly because the amount of time and effort he gave a production. Giving it his all, and being exhausted by the end of it. Now that is an artist, not simply an actor. He suffered for his craft and treated it seriously. But given his fear of money shortages, he signed up to projects.

I read his return to television, and its cancellation, hurt him. He expressed a lack of chemistry with the cast, and he would've been right. He was a perfectionist and wanted everything clicking, because he could meet that standard. And he knew when something was working, given his past success in film.

In his mind, he could've felt frustrated about returning to television too, given he started out there, being like a regression. And also if the product wasn't meeting his expectations, but felt he had to do it for the money. Towards the end, Robin was apparently sleeping 20 hours at a time, effectively locked in his bedroom with the curtains blacked out.

So it seems the man was in a tricky spot, mentally.

It's also a tricky spot for me, mentally. I'm left with the final footnote of Robin ending his life, when the majority of my memories are hilarious and great admiration. I think the good times will win out, but it does leave me melancholy. I suppose me feeling like that, a reaction to his death, gives you an indication as to what the guy was going through in life.

RIP.

I read that the television failure of the crazy ones negatively affected him as well. Sadly there wasn't a lot of talent to work with on that show.

Definitely he was the king of improv. I read that on Mrs Doubtfire one of the producers jobs was to track all his satires and references to get rights clearances. If you recall from that film when he calls his ex-wife several times playing all sorts of crazy characters to drive her nuts, that's classic Robin Williams; you could probably count on one hand the number of actors who could have pulled off that scene.