Comedians tend to make the best dramatic actors. Comedy is hard and timing has to be perfect. If you can do that then you can do drama. Robin Williams was probably the greatest example of that. His stand up career got him Mork and Mindy, but after that he roamed freely among the genres doing whatever caught his fancy. That mindset was reflected in his comedy. One could get motion sickness trying to follow him on one of his improvisational tirades as he lept madly among impressions, voices, and subjects ranging from social, political, historic, religious, and "huh?" Often the challenge was trying to figure out what the reference was as much as where he pulled it out of. Much of the movie Aladdin was made by just letting Williams go off on a tirade and then animating around him.
One of my favorite stories about him is the one Christopher Reeves told.
Robin spent a lot of time after Christopher's accident making him laugh. He did the same for Steven Spielberg during the filming of Schindler's List to help Steven fight off the depression the film brought on.Then, at an especially bleak moment, the door flew open and in hurried a squat fellow with a blue scrub hat and a yellow surgical gown and glasses, speaking in a Russian accent. He announced that he was my proctologist, and that he had to examine me immediately...it was Robin Williams...for the first time since the accident, I laughed. My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay.
I was a fan of the original, British version of Whose Line is it Anyway. My friends and I would talk about how awesome it would be if they could get Robin Williams on. In season 3 of the American version, they did just that. And it was awesome. Although, would have sworn that he wore his Mork suspenders.
Watch Robin Williams in Whose Line is it anyway? in Comedy | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
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