Robin Williams Portrait Session | Harry Langdon/
When Robin Williams went off script, that’s when the magic happened.
A bit of paraphrasing would suddenly leap off the page, gain creative momentum, and turn a simple scene into a film-industry sensation.
The beloved actor was so synonymous with improvisation that directors rewrote scripts to flatter his style, knowing that what ended up on screen would be among the most original and memorable moments in film.
Williams was such a master at riffing lines and creating legendary scenes from thin air that he gave directors hours upon hours of outtakes. In the case ofMrs. Doubtfire, he improvised so much that the cameras literally ran out of film. That’s another level of brilliance and brain power.
No one ever has, or ever will, capture hearts and seize screens quite like Williams did. Thankfully, his singular imagination transcended his life and is forever imprinted in many of cinema’s most acclaimed scenes.
So let’s carpe diem, seize the day, by looking back at a handful of Robin Williams’s most iconic improvised movie lines that made it into the final cut.
DEAD POET’S SOCIETY (1989)
Williams’s 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 delivers a line impersonating Marlon Brando performing one of Shakespeare’s works, something that was not present in the script but made it into the movie.
Similar classroom moments, like asking the boys to “Yawp” and tear pages from their textbooks to immerse themselves in the lesson, were also improvised.
Commenting on Williams’s acting style, Hawke told Vanity Fair:
“Robin Williams didn’t do the script, and I didn’t know you could do that. If he had an idea, he just did it. He didn’t ask permission. And that was a new door that was opened to my brain, that you could play like that.”
ALADDIN (1992)
Ron Clements and John Musker, who co-wrote and co-directed Disney’s Aladdin in 1992, actually crafted parts of the script with Williams’s improv style in mind, especially when envisioning the Genie’s personality. They encouraged him to “improvise to his heart’s content.” Clements shared:
“On the first day of recording [Genie’s intro], we had script pages written in Robin’s improv style and storyboards illustrating some of the visual metamorphosing we were planning. He started out recording the script as written a few times, then took off in a multitude of directions. The original scene was meant to be about three minutes long. Each take, Robin would add and embellish, so by the 25th (and last) take, the scene had expanded to about 20 minutes long!” Clements told Variety, referring to the actor as a “genius”.
The lines that came from this freedom became some of the most memorable parts of the film, in true Williams’s fashion. For instance, when Jafar turns into a Cobra, the Genie quips: “Becoming a reptile, unnecessary use of reptile. Five-hundred-year penalty,” straight from Williams’s wit.
Similarly, the celebrity impressions when the Genie first introduces himself to Aladdin were all riffed by Williams; not present in the script, but in the belly laughs of generations of viewers.
MRS. DOUBTFIRE (1993)
Mrs. Doubtfire was one of the best comedies of the ’90s, due in large part to Williams’s ability to turn a script into so much more than just words on a page.
The iconic “run-by fruiting scene” in which Mrs. Doubtfire, played by Williams, throws a lime at Stuart Dunmeyer, played by Pierce Brosnan, and blames it on a staff member at the country club, was improvised. Years after the film debuted, Brosnan commented on the mastery that was his fellow actor’s riffing skills, telling People, “It wasn’t in the script. I get the beers, I’m walking back and thinking, ‘This is going to take forever to hit me on the head.’ The first one missed. And the second one — is history.”
And at the birthday party, when Mrs. Doubtfire’s dentures fall into a glass of wine, and she says, “Carpe dentum, seize the teeth,” that was classic Williams; perhaps also a nod to his Dead Poets Society role as John Keating, who delivers a similar line.
GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997)
Much like in Dead Poets Society, Williams made his role in Good Will Hunting all the more real and raw with a bit of improv.
As the film comes to a close, therapist Sean McGuire, played by Williams, is meant to say nothing.As Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote it, the character reads Will’s goodbye letter, the car drives off, and the credits start to roll, but Williams had other plans.
As he reads the letter at his doorstep, he delivers the line, “Son of a b****. He stole my line,” totally unscripted. The story about his character’s late wife farting in her sleep was also improvised, making Damon’s reaction in this scene entirely organic.
Williams won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role for his work inGood Will Hunting.
