Front page	From the Event Guide archive! This article refers to an event which took place on, or until, 19 October 2006 Film Interview – Robin Williams / ‘The Nightlistener’ Night Fever Playing it straight in ‘The Night Listener’ didn’t stop Robin Williams kicking into comic mode when Paul Byrne met up with him in LA recently. From the start, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It’s July, LA, The Four Seasons Hotel on Doheny Drive, and Robin Williams is in full swing. “You’re telling me you have TV in Ireland!” he deadpans before launching into a motormouth routine. “That sounds almost like a contradiction. ‘Irish TV? We’re a verbal people! What do you need the visuals for?’ If ever there were storytellers – ‘We got the Book Of Kells. It’s right there. That’s why the English, they came and they said, ‘Hey, I think we’ll destroy the literature’. ‘Screw you, we’ll talk’. You go into a bar for a good talk. You’re not going to get a rock, you’re going to get a conversation. Essential…” Even when I’ve transcribed it, it doesn’t quite sit together, but then, Robin Williams’ flights of comic fancy aren’t designed to be slowed down and analysed. It’s all about the comic spark, that moment where genius, madness and childish humour create something special. Williams has been doing his comic schtick long enough to know that that spark doesn’t always happen, but he plainly just can’t help himself. In more ways than one, as it turns out, Williams checking himself into rehab in the tiny Oregon town of Hazelden Springbook two weeks after we met. In a statement, a rep for the 55-year old actor explained, “After 20 years of sobriety, Robin Williams found himself drinking again and has decided to take proactive measures to deal with this for his own well-being and the well-being of his family. He asks that you respect his and his family’s privacy during this time. He looks forward to returning to work this fall to support his upcoming film releases”. I particularly like that last line – Williams, ever the professional, wants to be fully rehabilitated so he can go out there and sell those movies. The first of those movies is ‘The Night Listener’, Williams plainly in serious mode as he’s donning a beard throughout. Based on the author Armistead Maupin’s own account of a young fan getting in touch by phone with tales of horrific child abuse at his now-imprisoned parents, the twist in the tale comes with the slow dawning on the author that the boy in question might not actually exist, and that he may in fact be the creation of his ‘minder’, a middle-aged woman. Williams plays the distraught author, whilst Toni Collette is the scarily backwoods woman who doesn’t want anyone to know where her healing little charge is hiding. Given that Maupin is a friend and neighbour of Williams, and brought the script over to his house, it must have been difficult for the actor to say no? “I’ve said no to friends before,” smiles Williams, “and I’ve said yes a few times when I should have said no. The idea… I was just saying, ‘This is a really interesting piece’, and the fact that it was based on something that actually happened to him made it even more fascinating. And as he told me more, I felt, oh, this is quite disturbing. And I think the movie is on that level.” So, without giving too much away about what happens in the movie, does Williams believe the boy really exists? “In the real case, people are convinced still that he does exist. Ask them if they’ve actually seen him, and they say, ‘No’. And because it’s like denying the existence of a deity, or someone telling you they were taken up by aliens. ‘Why do you believe that?’ ‘Well, my ass hurts’. ‘No, you just saw ‘Brokeback Mountain’. Shut up’.” Ah, we’re back in comic mode. Thought we might actually make it through a few questions and answers before the stand-up took over again, but I was wrong. “‘What happened?’ ‘We were fishing’. It’s going to be hard now when a guy says, ‘Me and Bob are going fishing’. ‘Oh, I know what you’re doing! Fishing, huh? I can’t quit you, honey. Fly-fishing? I know what that’s all about. Hook that zipper, get that old pole out and tie a couple of flies on the end’.” At this point, Williams slips into a Scottish accent. Maybe it’s supposed to be Irish, just for me. “‘Don’t start that, Robin! I really do fly-fish. I’m not necessarily planting one in the old backside. Before ‘Brokeback Mountain’, it was fine to hold a friend by the knob’. Sorry. Good luck with editing that…” I’m just amazed you were able to remember all the quotes from the movie so well, I offer. “Yeah, they’re exact quotes. One never heard John Wayne go, ‘Well, I can’t quit you, Ennis.’ ‘Well, come over here, Gaby’ ‘Wayne, I don’t know what I’m going to do now’ ‘I’m glad you took your teeth out, Stuffy’. To be fair, Robin Williams has long been aware of his Tasmanian Devil image, and has, over the last decade or so, been fighting it with such movies as ‘Good Will Hunting’ (for which he won an Oscar in 1998), ‘What Dreams May Come’ and the truly diabolical ‘Bicentennial Man’. His greatest attempt at proving to his audience that he was an old dog with more than one trick was his Nutter Trilogy, of ‘Insomnia’, ‘Death To Smoochy’… “‘One Hour Photo’, yeah,” nods Williams. “The Nutter Trilogy – that’s a great way to put it. They’re basically your dark nasty people.” Given that he is the man who makes people laugh, William is well aware of that extra obstacle that must be overcome when it comes to convincing cinema-goers that he can play dark and nasty. “I think that obstacle’s been overcome for several reasons,” he says. “Once you’ve done a movie like ‘Insomnia’ or ‘One Hour Photo’, people are going, ‘oh, maybe he’s not the nice man after all’. That what gives you a headstart on a movie like this, where you’re at the receiving end of the psychosis, the victim end, and it’s really interesting to play both. The bookend of that is kind of fascinating. In this given age, where everything seems real and it’s not – and I’m not talking about the people on MySpace; ‘you know who you are’ – but it’s the idea of, what can you do? And that’s why I want to do it. In truth, and in fiction, and what’s the boundary? Some good stuff…” Our time is almost up, so, time for the Oirish question. Has Williams been to the old sod? “Yeah, been over a few times. I’ve been to Galway. I landed in Knock International Airport. There was one man there, the mayor. ‘Do you want to see my passport?’ ‘Oh, don’t worry, just step over there by the fountain’. And all of a sudden, my knee worked. It was wonderful.” ‘The Night Listener’ is currently on general release, certified 16. www.thenightlistener.co.uk