When Robin Williams stepped outside the script, that’s when the magic happened.
A small paraphrase would suddenly jump off the page, gain creative momentum, and turn a simple scene into a film industry sensation.
The beloved actor was so synonymous with improv that directors would rewrite scripts to highlight his style, knowing that what ended up on screen would be one of the most original and memorable moments in the film.
Williams was such a master at riffing and creating iconic scenes out of thin air that he would spend hours giving out clips to directors. In case Mrs. Doubtfirehe improvised so much that the cameras literally ran out of film. This is another level of genius and mental ability.
No one has ever conquered or will conquer the screens the way Williams did. Fortunately, his exceptional imagination transcended his lifetime and is forever captured in many of cinema’s most famous scenes.
So let’s take a moment and take a look back at some of the most iconic ad-libbed lines from Robin Williams’ film that made it into the final cut.
- DEAD POET’S SOCIETY (1989)
- ALADDIN (1992)
- MRS. DOUBTS (1993)
- GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997)
DEAD POET’S SOCIETY (1989)
Williams’ role as English teacher John Keating in Dead Poets Society taught Ethan Hawke, who played student Todd Anderson, the power of improvisation.
When Keating is teaching the boys about Shakespeare, he says a line that depicts Marlon Brando performing one of Shakespeare’s works, which was not in the script but was included in the film.
Cool moments like asking the boys to “yelp” and tear out pages from their textbooks to immerse themselves in the lesson were also improvised.
Commenting on Williams’ playing style, Hawk told Vanity Fair:
“Robin Williams didn’t write the script and I didn’t know you could do it. If he had an idea, he just did it. He didn’t ask permission. And that was a new door that opened in my brain, and you could play like that.”
ALADDIN (1992)
Ron Clements and John Musker, who wrote and directed the Disney film. Aladdin in 1992, actually created parts of the script with Williams’ improvisational style in mind, especially when portraying the Genie’s personality. They encouraged him to “improvise to his heart’s content.” Clements shared:
“On the first day of recording[Jini’s introduction]we had script pages written in Robin’s improv style and storyboards illustrating some of the visual metamorphosis we had planned. He started writing the script as written several times and then started moving in different directions. The original scene was supposed to last about three minutes. Each take Robin added and embellished, so by the 25th (and final) take the scene had increased to about 20 minutes!” Clements told Variety, calling the actor a “genius.”
The lines that emerged from this freedom, in true Williams style, became some of the most memorable parts of the film. For example, when Jafar turns into Cobra, the Genie jokes, “Becoming a reptile, unnecessary use of a reptile. Fine of five hundred years,” straight from Williams’s wit.
Likewise, the celebrity impressions when the Genie first introduced himself to Aladdin were reworked by Williams; not in the script, but in the soul of the laughter of generations of viewers.
MRS. DOUBTS (1993)
Mrs. Doubtfire was one of the best comedies of the ’90s, thanks in large part to Williams’ ability to turn a script into more than just words on a page.
The iconic “fruit scene” in which Mrs. Doubtfire, played by Williams, throws a lime at Stuart Dunmeyer, played by Pierce Brosnan, and blames it on a country club employee, was improvised. Years after the film’s debut, Brosnan commented on the skill of his fellow actor’s riffs, telling People: “It wasn’t in the script. I grab a beer and walk back and think, “This is going to take forever to hit me on the head.” The first one missed. And the second is history.”
And at the birthday party, when Mrs. Doubtfire’s dentures fall into the glass of wine and she says, “Carpe dentum, grab your teeth,” it was classic Williams; perhaps this is also a hint at his Dead Poets Society role of John Keating, who utters a similar line.
GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997)
Very similar to Dead Poets SocietyWilliams played a role in Good Will Hunting even more real and raw, with a little improvisation.
As the film ends, therapist Sean McGuire, played by Williams, has no intention of saying anything. As Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote, the character reads Will’s goodbye letter, the car drives away, and the credits roll, but Williams had other plans.
Reading the letter on the threshold of his house, he utters the phrase: “Son of a bastard. He stole my phrase,” completely off-script. The story of his character’s late wife farting in her sleep was also improvised, making Damon’s reaction in the scene feel completely organic.
Williams received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor for his work in Good Will Hunting.