I'm a hip old granny who could hip hop, bebop, dance
til you drop, and yo yo make a wicked cup of cool cool.
This is Mrs. Doubtfire.
It's a movie that should have never worked as well as it did.
The premise of a man impersonating a housekeeper
in order to sneak into his ex-wife's home,
violate the terms of a custody agreement,
and secretly spend more time with his kids
is objectively terrifying.
Yet Mrs. Doubtfire is still broadly looked
back on as a beloved classic.
And we have the talent of one man to thank for it.
Surprise!
The general moviegoing audience fell in love
with Mrs. Doubtfire.
Or perhaps the more accurate statement
is that the general moviegoing audience fell in love
with Robin Williams.
Of course, you can't discount the work
the rest of the cast and crew put into the project either.
Chris Columbus' directorial style
made for a movie that felt close knit and personal while still
leaving room for plenty of pretty outlandish humor.
Dun, dun, dun!
It's a dinner show.
Dun, dun, dun.
Hey!
Hey, where are you from?
Thank you, I'm going to make you lunch.
Thank you very much.
The rest of the cast is incredibly solid,
and the award winning makeup and wardrobe department should also
be recognized for all they did.
But even so, every bit of work that went into this movie
was centered around the star actor.
Robin Williams played the main character, Daniel Hillard,
with the same childlike whimsy that
carried him through several of the biggest projects
in his career.
Hello!
[SCREAM]
Oh, I'm sorry to frighten you, dear.
I must look like a yeti in this getup.
But that specific brand of playfulness
was especially necessary for his role in Mrs. Doubtfire.
It was a role which could have devolved into disturbing
territory quite quickly.
Take, for example, the prank call sequence.
It's one of the funniest bits in the movie,
but it could have gone really wrong
without Williams' stellar performance to ground it.
Are your kids well behaved, or do they
need like a few light slams every now and then?
Um-- I'll have to get back to you.
The concept of a man obsessively calling his ex-wife
and impersonating nanny prospects
is creepy and obnoxious.
Yet Williams made it fun to watch.
His talents for improvisation and impressions
made the whole thing far more charming
than it has any right to be on paper.
There are a lot of similarly difficult scenes
that were made wholesome and hilarious purely
because the star power of Robin Williams.
Some of them were so far out in left field
that the production crew didn't even think they'd work.
The mugging is one such scene that
in the hands of a less skilled actor
could have felt way too over the top.
But Williams' ability to seamlessly transition
from scaring people on the street to daintily carrying
a purse is just astonishing.
He really embodied the character of Mrs. Doubtfire
through both his vocal talent and his general physicality
under all the hair and makeup effects.
What part of England are you from?
Here and there, dear.
All over, really.
Accent's a little kind of muddled.
Really?
Well so is your tongue.
There's a softness in his eyes and a delicate slowness
to his movements.
It makes the audience forget they aren't actually
looking at a sweet elderly lady who
just so happens to have the sense of humor of, well, Robin
Williams.
But it wasn't just Mrs. Doubtfire
who was soft and sweet.
Remember that Williams essentially
played two characters in this movie,
and the character of Daniel held his own as an eager, amiable
father figure.
There's an early scene in Mrs. Doubtfire
where Daniel is picking his children up from school.
Williams' gentle energy is on full display here,
and it's immediately clear to the audience
just from the way he smiles that these children are everything
to him.
He is a safe and loving person in their lives.
This was all intentional on the part of Williams and Columbus,
the latter of which has specifically
pointed to the scene as one of his favorite character moments
in the film.
The smile on Robin's face when he first sees the kid
says it all for me.
These children are his life, his reason for being.
And there's no doubt as to why.
It's difficult to imagine any other actor giving us
the same warmth as Williams does here.
Altogether, the performance lent the movie
a sort of heartwarming credibility.
The story was believable and the character
was likeable largely because Robin Williams himself was
believable and likable.
What do you mean, you do voices?
I do voices.
Yes!
We've come to this planet looking for intelligent life.
Oops, we made a mistake.
But his on screen performance is only half the story.
Williams' mere presence on set was
enough to make the movie that much more charming.
Five-year-old Mara Wilson, who plays
the part of Daniel's youngest daughter Natalie,
spends most of the aforementioned
after school scene in Williams's arms
while he banters with the two older children.
But there's an adorable moment between Daniel and Natalie
where they hiss playfully at one another.
It's a great illustration of how close they
are as father and daughter, and it was entirely unscripted.
Those little asides demonstrate just
how comfortable these kids were with the way Williams presented
himself both in front of the camera and just generally
on set.
But that trend didn't stop with the child performers.
By nature, Robin seemed to provide a place for actors
to open up and really play.
Thankfully, Chris Columbus trusted
him enough to help facilitate that environment too.
As such, some of the most memorable moments
in Mrs. Doubtfire are the product of improvisation.
This is the only two piece suit that I ever wear.
Mark.
Yeah?
Sorry, don't have one.
The tent-maker died.
You sure now?
Oh, no really.
I think I would blind people with these white legs.
Improvisation on the part of Williams, yes,
but especially on the part of the other actors
playing off of Williams.
Most of the dialogue between Daniel and his brother Frank
is improv, as well as virtually everything
that happens between Mrs. Doubtfire and the bus driver.
And of course, the bit everyone remembers
where Mrs. Doubtfire hides behind a mask of melting icing
was entirely improvised by Robin Williams
while Anne Haney's Mrs. Sellner had
to sit there as a comically stone faced scene companion.
It's a true statement to what kind of man
Robin Williams was when he was able to not only steal
a scene with improvised jokes but step back and give
other actors the freedom and support
necessary to do the same.
That's not something many actors can claim to be capable of,
and Mrs. Doubtfire as a whole is better for it.
Look at this.
My first day as a woman, I'm getting hot flashes.
Those small moments and bits of dialogue from characters
like Natalie, Frank, and Mrs. Sellner
made the movie feel genuine.
It reminded the audience that the secondary characters
were more than just springboards for Williams' jokes.
That additional bit of humanity helps
to drive the emotional core of the movie home,
and it was Robin, not as a performer,
but a person, who helped the actors feel comfortable enough
to make those choices.
The culmination of all of this comes in the form of a scene
a little over halfway into the movie.
The titular Mrs. Doubtfire and Daniel's ex-wife--
Sally Fields' Miranda Hillard-- have a conversation
in the family's kitchen.
It starts out innocent enough before segueing
into some of the most brilliant improv of the movie.
Williams delivers several great jokes about Mrs. Doubtfire's
late husband, and Sally Field plays off of him perfectly.
It was the drink that killed him.
How awful.
He was an alcoholic.
No, he was hit by a Guinness truck.
All the while, Williams maintains the physicality
of Mrs. Doubtfire with ease, allowing
for only one intentional slip of the persona
after a damning comment from Miranda.
Who needs a husband when I've got you?
Surely you don't mean that, dear.
Well.
Oh, that's so sweet.
It's playful and fun in that way only robin
Williams could produce.
But while the audience is laughing,
the movie slips into genuine sincerity.
They address why Miranda was unhappy in her marriage
to Daniel, and for the first time,
he understands that divorce is really the best
option for the two of them.
I didn't like who I was when I was with him.
I would turn into this horrible person.
I didn't want my kids growing up with a mother like that.
You can see that Daniel is struggling
to maintain Mrs. Doubtfire's pleasantly neutral expression
while he grapples with the reality
that the woman he was married to used to cry herself
to sleep at night.
It's a heartbreaking and beautiful moment
that Williams really hits the emotionality of.
But it's cushioned by those improvised jokes that
made the audience feel as comfortable in the scene
as the actors felt with Robin on set.
It made the scene, and indeed, the whole movie, a joy
to watch.
And he is the reason for all of it.
We may never see an actor like Robin Williams again.
The man was truly one of a kind, and there is perhaps
no better example of that fact than his role in this movie.
With a different actor at the wheel,
Mrs. Doubtfire could have come off as a hateful horror show,
but the sheer talent and authentically delightful nature
of Robin Williams made it into a classic fit
for the whole family.
Thanks so much for watching today's video all
the way to the end.
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a great movie?
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