Interview Magazine: ROBIN WILLIAMS

INTERVIEW BY TIM BOBBINS PHOTOGRAPH BY WILLIAM CLAXTON

THE FAMOUSLY HYPERKINETIC COMIC TALKS TO AN OLD FRIEND ABOUT MODERN LIFE, INCLUDING CAR ALARMS AND WHY ONE SHOULD NEVER SHY AWAY FROM A DEAD FISH

In Patrick Stettner's The Night Listener, the celebrated comedian plays a late-night radio host who develops intense relationships with a woman (Ton! Collette) and her adoptive son (Rory Culkin), a 14-year-old who claims to have had a horrifying childhood. Based on Armistead  Maupin's  novel,  Listener is  a creepy and satisfying coda to Williams's turn as a stalker in One Hour Photo (2002).

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Hey, Timbo.

TIM ROBBINS: The Night Listener. What a great performance. What a great movie.

RW: You liked it? It's a very unusual story. You know it actually happened, or almost did.

TR: Yeah, it's weird, because it brought to mind. ... I'm kind of interested in this JT LeRoy thing. My office was contacted by him a few years ago. It's been recently reported that this author who was supposed to be writ­ing about his experiences as an adolescent—

RW: Oh, right! TR: Prostitute.

RW: He was supposedly created by a woman.
TR: And then a relative of her partner posed as JT LeRoy.

RW: It's just a very strange thing, not only the idea of playing off someone's sympathy but the idea of creating another person, you know? With a pretty hideous backstory.
TR: A boy prostitute who was HIV-positive.
RW: Yeah, which is also playing off abuse, play­ing off pedophilia, you know, all those different things that hit people really hard.
TR: But it's a very creative way to, um— RW: jJaughs] Get published.
TR: And the danger is that it discredits causes that need help. The people I know who were approached about LeRoy all have large hearts and compassion. In the movie you play one of those people—an artist with compassion.
RW: Right.

TR: Ton! Collette is fantastic.
RW: Oh, yeah. That scene at her house is so frightening. We shot it in this neighborhood, I forget where it was. We were running all around New York, which was so great.
TR: I'm shooting in New York right now.

RW: It's the best, isn't it? TR: I'm on my game.

RW: [laughs] I had never been over to Brooklyn, and I didn't realize that, jeez, it's beautiful. There are great mixed neighbor­hoods that are really alive. And you get the real stuff, 'cause you're shooting in people's houses, not set decoration.

TR: There were so many levels of humanity and compassion to your performance.
RW: Well, it was good to have Armistead there.
TR: He was there for the shooting?
RW: He would come and go. It was like having a fact-checker around, but, you know, he's a sweet guy. And the director's young, but he's got chops, boss. With smaller movies, you gotta shoot quick and get it. But there's nothing better than shooting in New York.
TR: There've been so many productions here because of the tax break the city is giving.
RW: It pays off triple in publicity for the city. And there are so many great people there that are ready to work—actors, technicians, every­thing. As long as you treat the neighborhoods with respect. The toughest place to shoot is on the Upper East Side. Those folks will say, "I owned a studio. I don't need this bullshit."
TR: We converted an armory in New York for Dead Man Walking (1995). We shot on loca­tion in New Orleans and then came up here. It really adds to the performances.
RW: Like you said, you're at the top of your game. You have no choice. There's not a lot of tolerance for "I don't know what I'm doing." And you have great characters everywhere. When we were doing The Fisher King (1991), they would take homeless people and say, "Would you like to be in the background?" We'd hire them, and they'd hang out for about an hour, then they'd split. "I got things to do." What's the movie you're doing?
TR: It's about a guy who gets in trouble with the law and his family because of an obsession. RW: Oh, cool.

TR: It's an obsession with car alarms. RW: [laughs] He loves hearing them go off?

TR: He begins a personal rebellion against them and . . . let's put it this way: I get to smash a lot of shit. The last shot of the day often has me breaking a windshield, putting a knife into a tire to deflate it, or smashing the fender of a car to a certain musical beat with a baseball bat. It's way too much fun.
RW: Years ago there was a car alarm that would go "Back up, you are violating my proximity." TR: Oh, my God.

RW: I knew that car was gonna get the shit kicked out of it the moment I heard it. But I'm glad you liked the movie, boss, because when you get to play a character that's kind of out there, it's very exhilarating. And you get different fan mail.
TR: Often it's better to go back a couple steps or to do something a little more humble.
RW: It feels good. This is a good time of life. Today is Cody's graduation from the eighth grade, and he's been practicing his speech. He wanted to pull a dead fish out in the middle of it. It was like, "You can't do that."
TR: I can't believe you said he couldn't do it. RW: It wasn't me. The school said that. I'm going, "The dead fish is great."
TR: [laughs] Yeah, it's a classic] RW: Never shy away from a dead fish.
TR: I hope you have a great summer.
RW: It's gonna be good. I'm gonna take off the summer and the fall and just chill. Beat the shit out of cars for me.

TR: We're doing a scene in court tomorrow. I don't think I'll be able to smash anything.
RW: They tend to frown upon that. They'll taser you. One more thing: When you saw the picture of al-Zarqawi, didn't he look like Ron Jeremy? TR: Ouch. Good night, everybody.