Robin Williams

[faceless]

Robin Williams returns to UK stage for Prince of Wales's birthday
September 30, 2008
Roberto Pfeil

Veteran Hollywood comedian Robin Williams is returning to the UK stage for the first time in 25 years to celebrate The Prince of Wales’s 60th birthday. The film and stand-up star will perform alongside British comedy greats John Cleese and Rowan Atkinson for the Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall at London’s New Wimbeldon Theatre. Cheekily entitled We Are Not Amused, the one-off stage show on November 12 will be televised by ITV, with ticket sale profits going to the Prince’s Trust.

Williams started out as a stand up comedian before taking comic film roles in movies including Mrs Doubtfire and The Birdcage, and then winning an Oscar for the lauded Good Will Hunting in 1998. But the 57-year-old is likely to be relaxed as he rediscovers his roots in front of the Prince after launching a stand-up tour in the US last week.

Williams said he was inspired to head back to the stage for only the second time in 20 years by George Bush. “It’s an election year, which is basically Christmas for stand-up comics. I figured I should get my arse on the road while the shrub [Bush] is still in office.’’

His recently tumultuous private life could also provide inspiration for his London show. After previously achieving 20 years of sobriety, the comedian checked into rehab in 2006 for alcohol abuse. He then split from his wife of 19 years in March this year. Prior to his US tour he said he liked to draw on his personal experiences to write stand-up and would “open up” about his recent difficulties.

It will also be Atkinson’s first time on the stand-up stage in years. The Blackadder and Mr Bean star last toured the UK in 1991. Monty Python genius Cleese, meanwhile, has promised to deliver something “extra special” for the Prince. Tickets for the show will go on sale at 10.30am on Wednesday October 1, with prices range from £25-100.

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Comedians performing directly for royalty just ain't right... not since court jesters went out of fashion anyway...

[pirtybirdy]

I used to love Robin Williams back in the "Good Morning Vietnam" movie days, but I haven't seen him do anything good in years.

[faceless]

yeah, I'm the same myself really - though I did hear he was accused of joke-theft a few years back. I'm sure this show will be televised, so we'll see...

[faceless]

This is his appearance at Prince Charles' birthday celebration...




Robin Williams at the Gielgud Theatre: an exuberant modern clown
Dominic Cavendish reviews Robin Williams at the Gielgud Theatre in London
14/11/2008

Is comedy impervious to the credit crunch? How else to explain the insanity of this year, which has seen an unprecedented number of comics hitting the road, booking themselves into huge venues, charging top-whack and packing them in? It's as if when times are good, stand-ups are in demand; yet when things get rough, they're still regarded as a bread-and-butter essential. If only we'd been able to buy shares in the top names, we'd all be laughing now.

In early October, when the world's stock markets were in freefall, tickets to see Robin Williams perform his first live dates in London for 25 years were in greater demand than gold bullion. The asking price? £125 a pop. You could buy the whole of Williams's Hollywood film collection on DVD for that. Granted, these two rare appearances were arranged on the back of his turn at Prince Charles's 60th birthday gala - with the proceeds going to the Prince's Trust. But even so, that's a heavy investment to make to prove you're in on the joke.

To his credit, this not-so-young American, now in his mid-fifties, works hard for his money. His persona is frisky and eager-to-please, the kid at the back of the class who craves our indulgent attention, and from the moment he acknowledges the audience's welcoming applause, cavorting about in a mock-balletic style, every fibre of his being is harnessed to generating a laugh a minute.

He's dressed in low-key black trousers and shirt but what he is, of course, is an exuberant modern clown - quick with the physical slapstick, quicker still with the verbal wit. At their best, his one-liners are bubbles of pure originality: "When the Iraqis were having trouble writing a constitution, we should have said: 'Take ours, we're not using it.'"
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"The Chinese even make the Free Tibet stickers" gets the measure of the new world order in eight words, and false optimism about alternative fuel sources is punctured in a phrase: "They talk about hydrogen. I will just say one word and leave it with you: Hindenburg."

On balance, I'd have preferred more about politics and less about porn. There's a lot of elaborate bawdy riffing on the subject of male and female genitalia that just seems beneath him. And it wouldn't have hurt to mingle a few reflections on the Hollywood high-life with his down-with-the-people jibes about texting, hands-free kits and automated phone services.

These are minor quibbles, though. I'm glad I was there. I hope he comes again.

[faceless]

A special interview with Robin Williams
Actor and comedian Robin Williams speaks candidly about his career and long battle with alcoholism.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
03/11/2010
Kerry O'Brien
Click here to watch the full video

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Two years ago the comedian and actor Robin Williams hit the road with a new stand-up routine for the first time in 16 years. Three months later he'd undergone urgent heart surgery and was fitted with a new heart valve from a cow, which of course he immediately worked into his routine. As well as being an accomplished actor with a long list of screen credits, including an Oscar for Good Will Hunting plus two other nominations, Williams is the comedian's comedian, and he's on tour in Australia for the first time with a show he calls Weapons of Self Destruction.

His quick-fire, at times manic, brand of humour knows few boundaries, but he doesn't spare himself either. Talking candidly, even scathingly, of his 30-year battle with alcoholism and falling off the wagon after 20 years of sobriety. I spoke with Robin Williams in Brisbane today.

Robin Williams, I assume this show isn't just about your own preferred weapons of self-destruction. I assume we're all in it?

ROBIN WILLIAMS, ACTOR & COMEDIAN: Oh, yes, everyone, everything that I've been through the last, well, couple of years is in it. It was put together as kind of, "Let's talk about, because things, as they say, are getting really interesting."

KERRY O'BRIEN: For someone as high energy as you seem to be, to have been away from the full kind of circuit of stand up ...

ROBIN WILLIAMS: I did do a show in 2002. It was kind of after 9/11, that was a response to that, and it was about eight years, yeah. But coming back was great. It is interesting. Chris Rock says it's like being a prize-fighter: you gotta get ready, and you gotta be physically ready and emotionally ready and obviously, you know, intellectually and psychologically ready to get out and get in front of people and do what you do. The great news is: if it works well, great; if it doesn't, not so good. The metaphors are you killed or you die. So those are the two.

KERRY O'BRIEN: When you're in full flight, it's as if the words are struggling to keep up with the brain.

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Sometimes, yeah. Oliver Sacks says it's like voluntary Tourettes.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Well, I'll come back to Oliver Sacks a little bit later. But I assume that there has to be a serious discipline behind the free flow, or is it always just a high wire act?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Totally. No, no, I mean, you do have things kind of in the back of your mind, but sometimes you'll get, like, broken field-running where there'll be an opportunity to talk about something and you'll go off on it. I mean, occasionally somebody will say something or there'll be something new and you'll find a new idea. But, yeah, there is - behind it, there's thought and preparation and ideas, but you work them out on stage; you find out pretty quickly what works or what doesn't work. And sometimes the thing is to take the courage to say, "This may not be working here, but hold on, it might be working later on." Like the idea - I tried it once on stage of a - Mort Sahl, I talked to him today and he was talking about America as a country that looks like it's gonna go into rehab soon, and I thought there'd be a rehab for old - call it empires. "Hello, feeling like you used to be top of the world? Somewhat not empowered anymore? Powerless, really? Come on in. Come on, don't be afraid. These are the French. (Adopting French accent) 'Ello. We once had it all, but now we win the Melbourne Cup and we try to do all this crazy thing and now we make great food.' The Italians? (speaks Italian in Italian accent). The Russians? (adopts Russian accent). 'Don't ask!. We are working slowly through all of our problems.'

KERRY O'BRIEN: You forgot the English.

ROBIN WILLIAMS: (Adopts English accent). "Hello! Used to have everything. Now we're just basically horribly literate, incredibly intellectual and bitter about certain things, but moving on and moving through, God bless us all."

KERRY O'BRIEN: You're not easy on yourself in this show, are you?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: No. You know, as an alcoholic I talk about some warning signs like DUIs in a cul-de-sac, things like that. The idea of, you know, have you been through it to talk about it to see, like, you know, this is what you go through: heart surgery, alcoholism - I went to rehab in wine country just to keep my options open, and the idea of, you know, these are the things you gotta talk about.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Well you've got your own vineyard.

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Yes, that's like Ghandi owning a delicatessen. "What are you doing?" "This is not for my consumption."

KERRY O'BRIEN: So you were dry for 20 years?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Yes.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Why did you fall off?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: I was in a little town in Alaska; it wasn't the end of the world, but you can see it from there. And it was like all of a sudden I thought, "I could drink". It's that same thought you have if you look off a large building and go, "I can fly." And within a week it was like gone, you know. And now, I realise I can't, so that was a gift, you know.

KERRY O'BRIEN: How vividly can you remember falling into the trap in the first place with cocaine and alcohol?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: I can't vividly remember anything. It's like there is this thing for alcoholics called a blackout which isn't really a blackout, it's more like sleep-walking with activities. And I believe it's your conscience going into a Witness Protection Program. Going, "You're about to have sex with a hobbit. I've got to go now. Good luck. I'm checking out. I'm leaving the body on, but we're not gonna remember anything. Good luck to you. Take care."

KERRY O'BRIEN: But do you remember getting into it? Was it a gradual thing?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Getting into it? No. It was very gradual. It was just: "And you're off," you know, "You're off and running." And then the alcohol kicked in with the (inaudible), and then eventually you realise - I remember stopping it on my own because I was about to have a son and I didn't want to be coked up going, "Hey, dad loves you. Here's a little switch: I'm gonna throw up on you." You know, you don't wanna be like that. And I had to kind of go - but I did it alone. So that was why, you know, 20 years without any help.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Of course there are people who would say, "Why did you ever need cocaine? You're as fast without it as the heaviest cocaine addict would be."

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah, it's that weird thing. I think I did it because it would actually allow me not to talk. It was like, you know, reverse medication - you know, why they give Ritalin to hyperactive children is that idea of kind of, "Oh, OK, I don't have to talk to people. It kind of shuts you down." Which is the word, you know, self-medication.

KERRY O'BRIEN: And I've read that your friend John Belushi's death from an overdose was ...

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Yeah, that scares you.

KERRY O'BRIEN: ... a bit of a rude shock for you.

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Totally. And that - but more importantly my son. I think that was the beginning of kind of, you know, thinking outside the box of: you've got a responsibility and it's more than you.

KERRY O'BRIEN: How hard was it to break the grip the second time around?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Um, not hard once you go to rehab.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Really?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: That's the beginning of kind of, you know - the idea is you've gotta surrender; you gotta just say, "I can't do it." 'Cause, you know, I went to rehab with a lot of doctors and psychiatrists. And the more intelligent you think you are, the harder it is to let go. "I've got a solution: I'll just drink a little bit." It's like saying, "I'll just partially circumcise myself and I'll be fine." And then you have to go: nope - you lose. You can't do it. You need help. And at that point, that's the beginning. And then, you know, once you do that, you're (inaudible).

KERRY O'BRIEN: The world has come to see you as a brilliantly high-octane comedian who tried his hand at acting, but you actually trained as an actor first at Julliard in New York?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Totally.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Is one a passion more than the other or do they go hand in glove?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: They both - they feed each other. I mean, the comedy forces you to deal with fear and the idea of putting yourself out there, and the acting is more like going within and finding all the different parts of a character and especially when you're playing the really dark strange characters like in 'One Hour Photo' where you get to explore photo behaviour you'd prison time for. It's that idea of, "You're playing a killer." "Really?" And part of your brain's going, "That would be fun, wouldn't it? Yeah." But that's the joy of acting where you get to explore all sorts of different - you know, all those aspects of human behaviour and then you could take that back to comedy in terms of the concentration, so they feed each other, they're symbiotic.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Can we talk briefly about some of the people who've influenced your work or whose work you really enjoy? For instance, I saw you with Jonathon Winters ...

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Oh my God.

KERRY O'BRIEN: ... on David Letterman. There was clearly a very strong bond there?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Oh, he's the best.

(on Late Show with David Letterman, archive footage, 1986): Dad, did you sign those papers? Did you sign the papers? We need the house, daddy! Did you sign the papers?

JONATHON WINTERS: These ones?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: That's it, but you signed it upside-down again.

JONATHON WINTERS: I still love ya.

ROBIN WILLIAMS: He's a wonderful friend and he just had heart surgery and he's doing great. He had two stints put in. And I called him, I said, "John, how are you?" "Ahhh, I had an operation performed by Japanese surgeons. It was cheaper. When I told 'em I was in the war, they weren't pleased." And whenever I talk to him, it's really wonderful. He's the best. He's - for me, he's the Buddha. He is the teacher, very powerful influence.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Who are the actors you've enjoyed?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Oh my God, working with - here's the weird thing - I got to - Marlon Brando taught an acting class very briefly and I got to take it. I mean, he said, "You know, if you come in here, it's gonna be crazy. I don't know what I'll say because you'll have me laughing so much." At one point his dog was basically licking his arse. "Wouldn't that be a great behaviour to see in a film." I went, "Wow, if you're that flexible, way to go." But it's - you know, of the actors I've worked with, oh, Max von Sydow, Walter Matthau - all of them. It's been great. You know, you just walk away from the experience - I mean, the boys in Good Will Hunting - and they are boys, I mean, both of them, Matt and Ben. It was an incredible experience. And you walk away - there's been no movie that I've walked away from, even the one that didn't do well where you don't go, "I learned a lot."

KERRY O'BRIEN: What about Dead Poets Society with Peter Weir?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Oh my God! One of the greatest experiences. It was incredible. It was the true learning experience, because Peter's more than a director, he's a teacher. I don't know anybody who's worked with him that comes away going, "Well, that was nice." You come away a different person. He infuses you. Like when we were doing that movie, he gave us poetry, he gave us music - he played music during takes. It would just get you into this incredible spirit and very inspiring. I remember when the boys stood on their desk, I was going, "This is very powerful." And I looked over and I saw a Teamster crying and I went, "OK, this is really working." (Adopting Teamster accent) "You kinda rattled us crazy. I don't know why. The boys on the desk is gettin' me crazy."

(excerpt from Dead Poets Society, 1989)

ACTOR: Captain, my captain.

ACTOR II: Sit down, Mr Anderson. Do you hear me? Sit down! Sit down! This is your final warning, Anderson. How dare you.

(end of excerpt)


ROBIN WILLIAMS: But it was this inspirational movie where the first time I did a film where people were touched beyond the movie, where they wanna change their lives, and I hope for the better. Many people said they became teachers; I went, "Oh, good luck," especially picking that profession in America when you know that's gonna be really - you have to be dedicated to be that.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Is there anything you can't find something funny in? Is there any no-go area for you?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: I don't know. You'll find it; when you do, you'll know it the moment you do it and I don't want to explore that most of the time.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Hasn't happened yet?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Oh, there'll be things where you might get someone - you'll say something and people go, "Oh" and you go - you don't want to really - I'm not out to attack people in that sense, but you want to talk about things, but sometimes you go, "There will be people offended or hurt and you go, "OK, I've said it," you know, and you have to go - in the process of doing comedy, not everyone will find it funny.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Well you did offend Kevin Rudd?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Yes, I did. And that was by accident. It was weird. I was trying to talk about the Australian accent and saying it's a combination of English and I used the word redneck and I went, OK, good old boy or I can say Welsh samurai. But the idea that all of a sudden I offended the Prime Minister of Australia, and the next day he offended the Governor of Alabama when he said perhaps Mr Williams should spend some time in Alabama before he calls someone a redneck. Cut to the Governor of Alabama saying, "Perhaps the Prime Minister should spend some time in Alabama before he realises that we're decent, hard-working people." Now I've created a linguistic war between two accents - "I'll let me tell you right now." "No, right now, let me tell you right now." "No, come on ...". And meanwhile a Navaho code talker's going, "I will talk to them to try and bring them back to a place of peace. Kevin will - he meant no offence. It was mainly linguistic."

KERRY O'BRIEN: Well, Kevin Rudd is no longer Prime Minister.

ROBIN WILLIAMS: I know, he's gone away.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Well he's still around. He's Foreign Minister.

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Ha! Is he really? Congrats. Good job, Kev.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You've got so much success behind you; is there anything left undone?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Susan Boyle. Susan Boyle on Ice. No. People say that when they said, "Who would play her in the movie?," they went, "Me." And went, "Oh, no, no, please, that's taking Mrs Doubtfire way too far." I don't know what's left to do. I'm doing a play on Broadway in the spring, so that'll be interesting. It's a very weird piece called the Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo. That'll be a discipline. That'll be eight shows a week.

KERRY O'BRIEN: So what drove that decision?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: A really interesting play, kind of talking about the war in Iraq and about pretty much everything. It's a bit like Goddo in Iraq. It sounds like "What?," but I think it'll be - it's not an easy play, but I don't do things easy.

KERRY O'BRIEN: And how's your health now, how's the heart?

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Good. The heart is good. The bovine valve works. It's nice. I give a great quart of cream.

KERRY O'BRIEN: (Laughs).

ROBIN WILLIAMS: "What does that mean? Stop. Naughty and nice. Don't go there."

KERRY O'BRIEN: Robin Williams, thanks very much for talking with us.

ROBIN WILLIAMS: You're welcome boss. Thanks.

KERRY O'BRIEN: And Robin Williams' national tour begins in Brisbane tomorrow, moving to Melbourne on November 7 and Sydney on November 11.

[faceless]

Photo: Damon Winter
Tears of a clown
Behind the comic genius of Robin Williams lies a man whose demons drove him to the edge.
Decca Aitkenhead
October 29, 2010
The Guardian

My worry before interviewing Robin Williams was that he would be too wildly manic to make much sense. When he appeared on Jonathan Ross's BBC television show earlier this year, he'd been vintage Williams – hyperactive to the point of deranged, ricocheting between voices, riffing off his internal dialogues. Off-camera, however, he is a different kettle of fish. His bearing is intensely Zen and almost mournful and, when he's not putting on voices, he speaks in a low, tremulous baritone – as if on the verge of tears – that would work very well if he were delivering a funeral eulogy. He seems gentle and kind – even tender – but the overwhelming impression is one of sadness.

Even the detours into dialogue feel more like a reflex than irrepressible comic passion and the freakish articulacy showcased in Good Morning, Vietnam has gone. Quite often when he opens his mouth, a slur of unrelated words come out, like a dozen different false starts tangled together, from which an actual sentence eventually finds its way out. For example: "So/Now/And then/Well/It/I – Sometimes I used to work just to work." It's like trying to tune into a radio station.

I find myself wondering whether alcohol abuse might have something to do with it. Williams used to be a big drinker and cocaine addict but quit both before the birth of his eldest son, in 1983, and stayed sober for 20 years. On location in Alaska in 2003, however, he started drinking again. He brings this up himself and the minute he does, he becomes more engaged.

"I was in a small town, where it's not the edge of the world but you can see it from there, and then I thought: 'Drinking,' " Williams says. "I just thought, 'Hey, maybe drinking will help.' Because I felt alone and afraid. It was that thing of working so much and going f---, maybe that will help. And it was the worst thing in the world."

How did he feel when he had his first drink? "You feel warm and kind of wonderful," Williams says. "And then, the next thing you know, it's a problem and you're isolated." Some have suggested the death of friend Christopher Reeve turned him back to drink. "No," he says quietly, "it's more selfish than that. It's just literally being afraid. And you think, 'Oh, this will ease the fear.' And it doesn't." What was he afraid of? "Everything. It's just a general all-round 'argh'."

Williams didn't take up cocaine again because "I knew that would kill me". "Cocaine – paranoid and impotent, what fun. There was no bit of me thinking, 'Ooh, let's go back to that. Useless conversations until midnight, waking up at dawn feeling like a vampire on a day pass.' " It only took a week of drinking before he knew he was in trouble. "For that first week, you lie to yourself and tell yourself you can stop – and then your body kicks back and says, no, stop later. And then it took about three years and finally you do stop."

Williams says it wasn't fun while it lasted but three years sounds like a long time not to be having fun. "That's right. Most of the time you just realise you've started to do embarrassing things." He recalls drinking at a charity auction hosted by Sharon Stone at Cannes: "And I realised I was pretty baked and I look out and I see all of a sudden a wall of paparazzi. And I go, 'Oh well, I guess it's out now.' "

In the end, family intervention put him into residential rehab. I wonder if he was "Robin Williams, the comic'2019; in rehab. "Yeah, you start off initially riffing and kind of being real funny," he says. "But the weird thing is, how can you do a comic turn without betraying the precepts of group therapy? Eventually you shed it."

Williams still attends AA meetings at least once a week – "Have to. It's good to go" – and I suspect this accounts for a fair bit of his Zen solemnity. At times it verges on sentimental: he asks if I have children and when I tell him I have a baby son, he nods gravely, as if I've just shared. "Congrats. Good luck. It's a pretty wonderful thing."

But it may well be down to the open-heart surgery he underwent early last year, when surgeons replaced his aortic valve with one from a pig. "Oh, god, you find yourself getting emotional," Williams says. "It breaks through your barrier, you've literally cracked the armour. And you've got no choice; it literally breaks you open. And you feel really mortal."

Does the intimation of mortality live with him still? "Totally." Is it a blessing? "Totally." Williams says he takes everything more slowly now. His second marriage, to Marsha Garces Williams, a film producer, ended in 2008 – largely because of his drinking, even though he was sober by then. "You know, I was shameful and you do stuff that causes disgust and that's hard to recover from," Williams says. "You can say, 'I forgive you' and all that stuff but it's not the same as recovering from it. It's not coming back."

The couple had been together for 19 years and have a son and a daughter, both now grown up; he has another son from his first marriage to an actress in the late '70s. Williams is now with Susan Schneider, a graphic designer he met shortly before his heart surgery, and they live together in San Francisco. "But we're taking it slow. I don't know, maybe some day we'll marry but there's no rush."

Williams thinks he used to be a fairly classic workaholic but, at 59, is now taking it slow professionally, too. "In one two-year period I made eight movies . . . and that was dangerous. And then you realise, no, actually, if you take a break, people might be more interested in you. "Now, after the heart surgery, I'll take it slow."

Williams has been nothing if not prolific. After first finding fame in the late '70s as a kooky space alien in sitcom Mork and Mindy, he became better known as a stand-up comedian but his performance in Good Morning, Vietnam earned him an Oscar nomination in 1988, with two more in the following five years, for Dead Poets Society and The Fisher King. Mrs Doubtfire, in which he dragged up to play a nanny, brought wider mainstream success and 1997's Good Will Hunting finally won him an Oscar.

In recent years, however, Williams has made an awful lot of what would be described politely as less critically acclaimed films. Some of them have been downright awful; schmaltzy family comedies such as the saccharine Patch Adams or, even worse, Old Dogs. When I ask why he made them, he says: "Well, I've had a lot of people tell me they watched Old Dogs with their kids and had a good time."

It didn't offend his sense of integrity? "No, it paid the bills. Sometimes you have to make a movie to make money." He didn't mistake them, he adds, for intelligent scripts. "You know what you're getting into, totally. You know they're going to make it goofy. And that's OK."