Front page	From the Event Guide archive! This article refers to an event which took place on, or until, 18 January 2007 Film Interview - Robin Williams / 'Night At The Museum' The Comeback Kid After a self-imposed spell in rehab, Robin Williams turns the volume down to ten for Paul Byrne. There's very little doubt that Robin Williams is one of the funniest, and most energetic, people you could ever hope to meet. Part clown, part Tasmanian Devil, Williams� manically comic mind can be sparked by the barest of references. An example? I mentioned I work on Irish TV to him� �You�re telling me you have TV in Ireland!� he deadpanned before launching into one of his trademark motormouth routine. �That sounds almost like a contradiction in terms. �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 meet and hopefully something special is created. 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. Two weeks after our meeting in LA back in July, Williams checked 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 said at the time, �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. �Yep, that�s all that matters, right?� he smiles when I bring this up last week in London to a noticeably far-less-manic Williams. Truth be told, Williams was scared he might lose his wife of 17 years, Marsha, with whom he has two children. When he checked himself out of rehab, it was telling that he went to stay with a friend rather than move back into the family home. �Right now, what�s important to me, is to have a good family Christmas,� he tells me. �Everything else is simply my job, a job I enjoy doing. What really matters is my wife, and my two children. If I was a single man, I may not have bothered with rehab. I want to be there for them though. Really there.� Williams is quick to point out that, as much as he loves his job, more importantly, he feels a responsibility to all those people who cast him in their movies. Hence his coming out to shake hands and kiss babies. �I took on these movies because I thought they were films worth making, and, in this day and age, when there�s an average of eight new movies a week coming out, if you want people to see your movie, you�ve got to sell, sell, sell.� The movie Robin Williams was trying to sell to me in LA was �The Night Listener�, the actor plainly in serious mode as he donned a beard throughout (always a giveaway). Based on his San Francisco pal 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. It didn�t exactly set the world�s box-offices alight. Neither did William�s follow-up, Barry Levinson�s �Man Of The Year�. That slump is well and truly over though with two major hits for Williams this month – the box-office pounding penguin cartoon �Happy Feet� and �Night At The Museum�, Williams as Theodore Roosevelt, one of the many exhibits that come to life at night at New York�s Museum of Natural History, scaring the bejasus out of the new night guard (played by Ben Stiller). �At this stage of my career, I don�t tend to get overly worried about how my films do at the box-office,� says Williams, �but you do care, as I said, for those people who put the movie together. And yeah, of course the ego gets a little stroke with every hit that you put under your belt.� An incredibly sedate, and sensible, answer. I had come to learn that, when you walk in to a Robin Williams interview, there�s every chance that you won�t get a straight answer to any of the questions you have lined up. But straight seems to be the order of the day today. 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�.� Given that Williams is in pensive mood, I bring up the notion that being a jet-setting movie superstar might not be the best line of work to be in when you�re trying to stay clean and sober. For someone trying to avoid the high life, aren�t there a large amount of opportunities� �Yeah, opportunities and mini-bars.� Did it cross his mind whilst he was in rehab, that this line of work mightn�t be the best one to be in right now? �No, this line of work is the best line of work for me. Just don�t drink, and then you can remember your thoughts. Makes life a little easier. Does it have the traps built in, yeah, but any line of work has that. People with drinking problems are in all walks of life, and you just have to say, okay, drinking is not my friend, and then you realise that it�s not for you. It was also good to go to rehab in wine country. That gives you a running start when it comes to resisting temptation.� Our time is nearly up, so I ask Wiliams if he�s aware that there are those in the U2 camp who have taken to calling Bono Mrs. Doubtfire, given his ever-growing resemblance to a certain jet-setting movie superstar. �My stunt double!� he laughs, before launching into the chorus of �In The Name of Love�. �Whenever I see him, I go, �Hello, son�. And The Edge. It used to be just Edge, now it�s The Edge. If he ever gets knighted, it�ll be Sir Edge. �I knight you, Sir Edge�.� When we last spoke, Williams hadn�t quite gotten around to exploring U2 country all that much, having just managed a trip to Knock and a quick gander around Galway. �Yeah, it was weird. I was with a friend, and someone told her about the Galway Races. And she said, �The Galway Racist?!�. �No, the Galway Races�. �Oh, okay, that�ll be fine�. I�d love to get back, I had a lovely time. When I was in Dublin, I saw the Book of Kells. It�s a great, great place. I�ve got to come back and ride my bike there, because I�ve heard it�s a great place for bike riding.� And it would be the perfect opportunity to put that U2 tribute band together. �Oh, that would be great. Bonopalooza.� In the meantime though, Williams is keen to get back to San Francisco. �I got to go home,� he says, softly, �and have Christmas.� �Happy Feet� is in cinemas now, certified PG. �Night At The Museum� opened nationwide on Tuesday 26th December, certified PG. www.nightatthemuseum.com