(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sometimes the worst thing you can do as a performer is tread familiar ground. Each project becomes a chance to try something different and flex your wings, with anything even vaguely similar to a past project feeling slightly stale. Some of the greatest actors of all time are great for this very reason, with the likes of Nicole Kidman, Dustin Hoffman and Ralph Fiennes remaining at the top of the league as a result of their chameleonic and ever-changing filmographies.
But this is a quality we’d also associate with the likes of Robin Williams, with the actor effortlessly working across all genres and possessing the ability to both devastate and entertain audiences, whether through a single look, off-handed comment or joke. However, it seems as though there were many cogs whirring behind the scenes as he carefully selected each project, with the actor declining another role in one of his later films as a result of his creative philosophy, and something that marked him as one of the greats.
There is perhaps no director more surprising than Mike Nichols. While the director maintains certain thematic strands and comedic style in each film, the stories range from being violently cynical to heartbreaking and hilarious. Whether it be The Graduate and his portrait of upper-class oppression, or the coldness of Closer, the director is infamous for both his work on-screen and on the stage, with a decades-long collaborative relationship with Elaine May that became the stuff of legends.
But the director also knew how to hand out curveballs, with his 1996 film The Birdcage being no exception. Starring two of the most esteemed actors of the time, Williams and Gene Hackman, Nichols devoted himself to a pure comedy through the story of a gay couple who have to pretend to be straight to appease the very conservative family of their son’s new girlfriend.
While Williams is known for playing Armand Goldman, he later revealed that he was initially encouraged to play the part of Albert, the very flamboyant partner of Armand. However, the actor was not drawn to this part in the same way for the reason that he had done something similar before, saying, “My manager begged me to play Albert. He said it would give me carte blanche to be the most outrageous I’ve ever been. But I’ve been a big bad woman before. The challenge for me was to play the more subtle Armand and see if I could still get my share of laughs. It’s bad enough that the Mrs. Doubtfire people want to put me back in drag for a sequel. I don’t have to wiggle into a bra and pantyhose for every other studio in Hollywood.”
Mrs Doubtfire is a hugely iconic character for Williams, and one that you would no doubt want to detach yourself from as a performer in order to carve out new roles and expereinces. Williams expanded on this by saying, “I thought, ‘I want to try something different, something more elegant. People expect me to be the more flamboyant one. I wanted something new… It’s a dry, restrained comedy, versus being so outrageous, and that’s what was interesting for me. It’s like learning a whole set of different muscles.”
Sometimes the least appealing path is the one you know well, and Williams is fascinating in his more restrained and melancholic portrayal of Armand, with Nathan Lane perhaps exceeding what he could have done with the role of Albert.
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