Director Chris Columbus has said in a new interview with Insider that when filming Mrs. Doubtfire there ended up being hours of footage because of the late Robin Williams.
The Hollywood filmmaker said that he would like to hire someone to comb through what they captured as there “could be something we can do with all of that.”
Filming Mrs. Doubtfire involved two million feet of film and over 900 boxes because of Robin Williams
Mrs. Doubtfire was released 30 years ago this year, and now Chris has opened up about what working with Robin Williams was like and the lengths they would go to in order to get everything he did on camera.
The Harry Potter director said in a new interview with Insider: “There is something special and magical about how [Williams] went about his work, and I think it would be fun to delve into it. I mean, there’s 2 million feet of film in that warehouse so there could be something we can do with all of that.”
He continued saying that if it were filmed today they would have “never ended” making the movie and that it was “quite difficult” for other actors not to break character.
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“If it were today, we would never end,” Columbus continued. “But back then, we were shooting film so once we were out of film in the camera, we would say to Robin, ‘We’re out of film.’ That happened on several occasions.
“It got to the point that I had to shoot the entire movie with four cameras to keep up with him. None of us knew what he was going to say when he got going, and so I wanted a camera on the other actors to get their reactions. For Pierce Brosnan and Sally Field, it was quite difficult for them not to break character.”
Co-star ‘frustrated’ Robin
On the set of Mrs. Doubtfire, Sally Field, who portrays Robin Williams’ onscreen wife said that she “frustrated” the actor as he could “never make me laugh.”
She explained in an interview: “What drove him absolutely crazy is that he could never make me laugh. He would never break me up.
“He had endless energy. And he’d want to do take after take after take because every take he would want to do something different.”
Despite his “endless energy” making other stars “tired,” she said that working with Robin was “insane” and “so fun.”
He really wanted to be in Harry Potter but was turned down
The beloved actor was desperate to be cast in Harry Potter during the 2000s but was turned down due to J. K. Rowling’s strict rule that only British actors could play her characters onscreen.
Casting director Janet Hirshenson told Huffington Post in 2016 that Robin, who died in 2014, had his heart set on playing loveable giant and gamekeeper Rubius Hagrid (who was eventually played by Robbie Coltrane).
“Robin had called him because he really wanted to be in the movie, but it was a British-only edict, and once he said no to Robin, he wasn’t going to say yes to anybody else, that’s for sure.”
However, this didn’t deter him and he tried again. This time he tried his luck for the role of Hogwarts professor Remus Lupin.
“I had a conversation with Robin Williams, who wanted to play Lupin. It was very difficult for me to say, ‘It’s all British. There’s nothing I can do,'” Chris told Total Film.
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