Sally Field spent much of the production of Mrs. Doubtfire utterly unmoved by her co-star Robin Williams, and she was not shy about saying so on national television.
Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Field recalled that Williams, whose improvised comedy routinely sent cast and crew into fits of laughter, could not crack her. "Because I would never laugh, ever," she said. "And everybody else was laughing and carrying on."
The revelation is a notable one, given that the 1993 film is remembered as one of Williams' most beloved comedic performances. Williams played Daniel Hillard, a struggling actor and divorcee who disguises himself as a British nanny to spend more time with his children at his ex-wife's home. Field played that ex-wife, Miranda Hillard.
According to Field, her refusal to laugh gnawed at Williams throughout production. "It drove him mad, actually," she said. "It wasn't funny. It just wasn't funny."
Williams was known for his relentless on-set improvisation and his determination to make scene partners break character. Field proved to be an exception he could never quite solve. She later described his attempts to win her over as maddening in their own right.
"Robin was always trying something different to make me laugh," she said. "It was so unfunny. I can't begin to tell you."
The person who finally got to her was not Williams at all. It was Pierce Brosnan, who played Stu, Miranda's love interest in the film. According to Field, the two were seated together at a restaurant scene when Brosnan made a fart noise on his arm. "And I was gone," she said. "That was it."
Williams died in August 2014 at his home in Tiburon, California. He was 63. The Tiburon coroner's office ruled the cause of death as suicide via asphyxiation. His other well-known films include Good Morning, Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, The Birdcage, Aladdin, and Good Will Hunting, for which he won the Academy Award for best supporting actor in 1997.
Mrs. Doubtfire remains one of the most commercially successful comedies of the early 1990s and a fixture of Williams' legacy.
