Robin Williams — His Funniest, Scariest, and Oddest Movies Remembered

Popeye (1980)

The comic strip character is brought to life by Robin as an odd comedy-musical as Popeye travels to Sweethaven to find his lost missing father (played by Ray Walston). Along the way he meets the woman who becomes the love of his life, Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall), soon-to-be-nemesis Bluto (Paul L. Smith), and abandoned baby Swee'Pea, who he takes in. Of course when Bluto tries to do some bad stuff, Popeye discovers the power of spinach!

Speaking to savannahnow.com, Robin said of Popeye, "It was the craziest experience. It was great. It was a great script written by Jules Feiffer based on the (E.C.) Segar cartoons and the comic strip, which is really wonderful. He’s such a great, crusty character and an orphan, with the whole idea of finding his Pappy, and then there's all that stuff he mumbles, which is pretty nasty. Going back they wanted me to re-loop it, but it wasn’t meant to be understood, it was meant to be like [in voice], ‘Oh, I seen better looks in oatmeal.' You know, this kind of wild stuff."

Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

In Vietnam, Robin plays radio announced Adrian Cronauer, who tries to bring some lightness and humor into the lives of soldiers but finds himself bucking against the system at every turn. Through the course of the film he also discovers the true nature of what is going on in the war.

Writing for Historynet.com, journalist Rick Fredericksen explains that he was on set during filming, noting, "It was clear that Williams had done his homework. He read the war diaries Dispatches and Nam and listened to old armed forces radio recordings to prepare for his role as a fictionalized version of AFVN’s Adrian Cronauer, who greeted his radio audience with 'Goooooood morning, Vietnam!'… 'Cronauer did some funny things and played rock and roll, and censorship was real,' Williams said. 'If a restaurant blew up and he made an announcement on the radio, they pulled him off the air.'"

Dead Poets Society (1989)

John Keating (Robin) is a new English teacher at a strict all-boys preparatory school. Recognizing the pressure that the students are under to succeed, he attempts unusual methods to reach and help them. At that point, Robin was in the midst of proving to the world — successfully it should be said — that there was much more to him than Mork.

Hook (1991)

This is just a personal feeling, but Hook remains such an underrated film from director Steven Spielberg. There's real magic here as Peter Banning (Robin), the adult Peter Pan, is married with kids but has forgotten how to enjoy life, which has robbed him of the memories of his youth. When his son is kidnapped by Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman), it's up to Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts) to get him back to Neverland and remember everything.

“The hardest part in the beginning was playing the Pre-Pan – the PP – because I would try things and they would say, ‘That’s wonderful, but it’s too imaginative, he’s much more tighter-wrapped than that," Robin related. "To be truthful, even though he’s very successful, he’s a very disconnected man. He has no sense of himself before the age of 11 or 12, and to work on that part was the hardest. By the time I got to the flying and the fighting, that was like, ‘You can go now; you’re free.’ The dangerous thing with Pan is how do you make it so that it isn’t too cute? He still has to have a dangerous edge, because he is lethal. How do you put that in? How do you keep all those different elements going? Because by the end of the movie, he’s kind of a combination of both characters — he’s not Pan, he’s not Banning, but he’s found who and what he is, which was the whole point of the script."

Aladdin (1992)

Aladdin. Jasmine. And Robin as Genie, giving an amazing performance with a role that — despite the fact it's animation — allows him to do everything that he does best. Linda Larkin and Scott Weinger (respectively the voices of Jasmine and Aladdin), have strong memories of working with Robin. "When I think about Aladdin, I have the experience of doing this character," offers Linda. "Of working with great actors. Working with Robin Williams. It was never lost on me how lucky I was to be in his presence every time I was."

"I was obsessed with Robin Williams my whole life, because of Mork & Mindy," adds Scott. "Even when I was a very little kid, I had a Mork doll — an egg with a little Mork in it. Then by the time I got the part in Aladdin, my ultimate favorite movie at the time when I was 15 was Dead Poet’s Society, which starred Robin Williams. Walking into the room to work with the guy was intimidating, but he put me at easy very quickly. His whole demeanor was very soft spoken and very professional. Then he turned on the Robin Williams that everybody knows as soon as the tape was rolling. It was incredible. I’m very proud of myself, because it’s the kind of thing that I could see myself spinning out of control and not being present in the moment when I was working with him; just being so freaked out and intimidated and overwhelmed. But I remember it very clearly, and it was a really great experience. The challenge was not laughing so hard and ruining every take."

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)

Following his divorce, and desperate to be closer to his kids, Robin's Daniel Hillard transforms himself into a seemingly older British woman to serve as a nanny and he's accepted into the household. It's like Toosie, but different.

"If Daniel has a flaw," says Robin, "it's that he would let his kids do anything, and he'll do anything with them. He has no real boundaries. He doesn't discipline as much as just explore life with them. He can't take it when he's denied access to them. He says he's addicted to them and that the idea of not being around them is like saying he can't breathe. He has to take an extreme measure."

Jumani (1995)

If you've seen the recent Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, then you owe yourself a look at the original. Two kids find a board game that turns out to be magical, and which unleashes a man (Robin) who has spent years trapped within the game. Elements of that world come crashing (literally) into ours, and the only way to stop the danger is to finish playing the game.

Patch Adams (1998)

A great part for Robin, in that he gets to bring the true life story of Hunter "Patch" Adams — a doctor whose approach includes humor and compassion for his patients — to life. "There is such a thing as bedside manner," Robin pointed out. "And some medical schools have gone back to teach that. It's all about connection."

Bicentennial Man (1999)

Set 200 years in the future, Robin plays a robot named Andrew who is constantly working at acquiring emotions and becoming more human. "The appeal to me," said Robin, "is the way the story deals with artificial intelligence and human behavior. It's the idea of a robot, an assembly line creature, an NDR-114. There are thousands of them in the beginning, but there's something unique about this one. He has curiosity, a sense of fascination."

Insomnia (2002)

Al Pacino is a cop sent to an Alaskan town where the sun doesn't set for a couple of months at a time to investigate a teenager's murder. Once there, he finds himself in a game of cat-and-mouse with his main suspect (Robin), which actually threatens his sanity.

Robin explained that what attracted him was the battle of wills between the two characters: "Normally there's a good cop pursuing a bad cop, but the interesting twist about Insomnia is that the moral high ground is quickly lost and the story moves into a more ambiguous area. The characters face off in this moral gray zone, playing this lethal game of one-upmanship. When you add that kind of stress to being in this unfamiliar place where it's basically light twenty-four hours a day, how does that affect you mentally? That is what made this film so interesting to me."

One Hour Photo (2002)

A mentally unstable photo developer (Robin) becomes obsessed with a family whose photos he's been developing, and begins to stalk and attack them. One of Robin's darkest roles, but he was excited to play the character. "I'm glad they sent the script to me to begin with," he explained."People always say, 'Oh, he plays such nice people.' This man is nice, but with a dark side. It's been exciting to play that. He does things that are creepy, bizarre. It's interesting stuff to inhabit a real and very, very fascinating character."

In terms of his on-screen targets, he added, "They're not like a Norman Rockwell family, but almost like families you see in advertisements now. They're young, beautiful, and perfect in terms of that ideal image and they seem to have everything. And that's what he finds fascinating, because he is totally the opposite; not attractive, he lives alone. They are like the exact counter pole to the universe for him and he's drawn to that. He views himself not as an evil character, just as a man who is righteous in his own way. A man who views himself almost like he is doing good, in a bizarre way."

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014)

Robin returns in a small role as Theodore Roosevelt in the third chapter of the series about adventures within a museum when the various exhibits come to life. "He was a larger-than-life figure in real life," he said of Roosevelt, "an extraordinary man and an outrageously independent person who basically fought for what he called 'the little man.' Reading about him established the idea that he was both a very ethical and charismatic person. It was a blast getting to inhabit that kind of persona.

"Museums naturally lend themselves to the question of just what goes on in there at night and to have history come to life — and confront you —wow," he continued. "I love this kind of story that's part fable and part grand adventure. I especially loved the dioramas coming to life, because I collect miniatures and the idea of something on that scale coming alive is like 'Yo, dude!' And it's great fun to have Neanderthals and Huns running around again —they're always good for a party."