Robin Williams

Directed by Les Mayfield, this comedy film is a remake of the 1961 movie “The Absent Minded Professor.” Williams plays the role of Professor Philip Brainard, with Marcia Gay Harden co-starring as his fiancé and Sara Jean Reynolds as the college president. Brainard attempts to perfect his invention of “flubber” – a bouncy, elastic material – in order to raise money to save the sinking college, and in the process misses his own wedding three times in a row.
He performs the stunt scenes himself, which involv jumping to heights of 30 feet after applying flubber to his shoes:

We had six or seven guys hauling me up, groaning, ‘Oh, no! Don’t go again! We’re not hauling your ass up there again!’

Williams plays Osric in this drama directed by Kenneth Branagh based on the William Shakespeare play. Hamlet returns home to find out his father is dead and his mother is marrying his uncle who is his father’s murderer. Co-starring Billie Crystal, Julie Christie, and Derek Jacobi. Branagh on Williams:

(He’s) an actor who would be funny, but could also be real in the way I felt was necessary.

http://youtu.be/-rd74Gniz-A

Williams stars in this comedy drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He plays Jack Powell, a boy who suffers from a rare disorder that ages his appearance four times faster than his actual age. The story depicts his struggles in dealing with this disorder as well as the relationships he builds with this family and friends. He co-stars with Diane Lane, Brian Kerwin, Jennifer Lopez and Bill Cosby.

But I think what made me want to play Jack was that innocent time before all that, riding bikes, friends in treehouses, all those things that loom on the boundaries of child and boy.

Williams stars in this fantasy drama as character Alan Parish, a boy who opened the board game Jumanji and was sucked into the game for decades before being freed by two new players. Parish must help to complete the game to return the horrors Jumanji has created.

There is a scene in the movie where you wrestle a crocodile and there is things in the movie that are computer effects and the rest an animatronic which means muppets on steroids. I was wrestling this crocodile and I pounding it on the head and I hear someone inside go “hey!”

In this comedy directed by Barry Levinson, Williams plays a military general who inherits a toy factory. He starts making war toys and his employees have to band together to stop him from ruining the name of the toy store.  Costarring Michael Gambon and John Cusack.

It was magnificently fun to do because I would just go in knowing I was going to this magical place.

http://youtu.be/Juk8R28_RuM

In this comedy directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, Williams plays a mime class instructor. A drunk clown is accused of killing his boss, so he poses as a mime to gather information to clear his name. Costars Julie Brown, Bruce Baum, and Steve Bean.

It allowed me to put some lessons to work. Many people wouldn’t think I studied the art of mime.

Williams plays Peter Banning all grown up in the film, Hook. In the movie, Peter Banning has forgotten his roots as Peter Pan in Neverland, but must find them and return when his children are kidnapped by Hook—played by Dustin Hoffman.

The hardest part was to get the innocence of it. Like when I see my daughter, who’s 2, who sees a Christmas tree, to get that face. To lose the fact that you’re 40 and get to a point that’s 10 or 11.

Williams stars alongside Jeff Bridges in this drama directed by Terry Gilliam. Bridges’s character, shock jock Jack Lucas, inadvertently pushes a psychotic radio caller over the edge and suffers a breakdown himself after finding out the caller has committed a massacre. Several years later, while working as a clerk at a video store and heavily depressed, he is rescued from an attack by homeless man Parry, played by Williams. He becomes involved with Parry and finds he is connected to the tragedy that caused his own downfall. Jack must rescue him in an urban re-imagining of the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King.

Parry is a man with a previous life that was so damaged that he had to create another personality … Some people respond to traumatic or tragic events by withdrawal; some even create other personalities. Parry is a creation – somewhat Don Quixote, somewhat Groucho Marx – but he’s a creation designed to avoid a past event.

In this drama directed by Penny Marshall, Williams plays Dr. Malcolm Sayer, based on the 1973 nonfiction book by Oliver Sacks. Williams portrays a physician who cares for victims of the 1920s encephalitis lethargica epidemic. The patients are revived after he experiments with a new medication determined to bring these people back to a normal state. Co-starring Robert DeNiro and Julie Kavner.

I loved the chance for pushing the envelope to change people’s perceptions of this.