Robin Williams

Hating Disney as a production company is rather abstract and does not mean dismissing specific work. The difference is that by dismissing a specific movie one also belittles the other people working on it. It would suprise me if Williams would have been that kind of *beep* who would take the money and then badmouth people forced to do the same.

Example?

An example about how he never talked about Flubber? Or how he did not talk about Patch Adams? Just take a random interview which is not made during the promotion of one of his comedies and you won't read a word about it unless the interviewer specifically asks for it. His serious work obviously comes up more often since his career defining moments, other than Mork perhaps, happened in serious movies, so even if I dug out quotes, this would not necessary mean that he would rate his work on The Dead Poet Society higher than his antics in Patch Adam.

which he said drained his spirit and made him more vulnerable to depression

Which does not really say much: an artist moving out of his comfort zone is always more vulnerable. The more a movie defines him, the more he will identify with the result. Also the reward is much higher if the result is a success. That is kind of the point of being an artist.
I can totally see why he would avoid to get into that position again, or like with his sitcom, on his own terms. And when looking at how The Crazy Ones bombed ratingwise, it does not seem he was any less vulnerable in that case. I am not sure whether the rather harsh critics about Flubber hit him remotely as hard, but they did not make him kill himself.

Still the quote might tell why he loved doing stand-up much more than his other work (I think he mentions that in his chat with Marc Maron, which obviously is a lot about their common ground: adiction and stand up).

reply share

add reply

formatting help