It’s been more than five years since the death of Robin Williams, the beloved comedic actor behind some of the most memorable film performances of the 1980s and 1990s. While Williams certainly had his share of bad movies in his career, there’s little debate over the fact that even in a subpar role Williams committed himself totally to the character he was portraying, whether it was a grown-up Peter Pan, an alien from Ork, or a no-nonsense therapist.
In and archival clip in the 2018 documentary Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, Williams shared one of his thoughts on finding the right starting point for playing a character:
“Every person is driven by some deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep secret and finding that for a character gives you that which drives it through. You look for it and then you try and find that essence that drives them. If you can find it, if you find the right one, they’ll know it.”
