Robin Williams may have been a comedy legend without parallel, but one of his most famous co-stars now admits it took her some time to warm to his sense of humor. Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Wednesday, Sally Field reflected on her experience working with Williams on the 1993 film Mrs. Doubtfire. Williams, she recalled, spent much of his time trying to get his co-stars to crack up while on the set, even if it sometimes meant breaking character.
Field's Resistance to Williams' Humor
“Everyone would laugh but me,” she said. “It drove him mad, actually, because I would never laugh, ever.” The two-time Oscar winner offered a very simple explanation as to why she didn’t laugh. “It just wasn’t funny,” she said, later adding, “Robin was always trying something different to make me laugh. It was so unfunny, I can’t begin to tell you.”
Behind the Scenes of Mrs. Doubtfire
Directed by Chris Columbus, Mrs. Doubtfire follows Daniel Hilliard (played by Williams), an out-of-work actor who loses custody of his three children after a messy divorce from his wife, Miranda (Field). The newly single dad calls on his brother, Frank (Harvey Fierstein), to help him create the alter ego of nanny Euphegenia Doubtfire in a desperate, albeit comically presented, attempt to stay in his kids’ lives.
Interestingly, Field went on to reveal that it was actually Pierce Brosnan — who portrayed Miranda’s post-divorce love interest, Stuart — who successfully made her laugh before Williams did. “We were sitting at a table at the restaurant, and he made a fart noise on his arm, and I was gone,” she said. As for Williams, he was understandably dismayed at Brosnan getting Field to break so easily. “He said, ‘That’s all it took?’” Field quipped. “I had to leave for a minute. I laughed so hard, they had to redo my makeup.”
Williams' Legacy and Bond with Co-Stars
Williams died in 2014 at age 63 in an apparent suicide. Last year, fellow Mrs. Doubtfire actor Matthew Lawrence recalled the quiet bond he shared with his late co-star, noting Williams would speak frankly about his experiences with drug and alcohol addiction during the time they worked together. “He really quantified what it was to be a real artist for me in the sense that he was definitely, and I worked with some great people, and he was definitely the most brilliant artist I’ve ever worked with,” Lawrence told Entertainment Weekly last year. “But on top of that, he had the compassion, he had the humility, and he also had these things that he struggled with.”
Field returns to the small screen this week opposite Lewis Pullman in Remarkably Bright Creatures. The film adaptation of Shelby Van Pelt’s 2022 bestselling novel hits Netflix Friday.
