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Robin Williams’ True Color Develops
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the Fotomat, Robin Williams decides to change his image for playing schmaltzy characters by appearing in One Hour Photo. He joins co-stars Connie Nielsen and Michael Vartan, as well as filmmaker, Mark Romanek, to discuss the film.
Friday, August 23, 2002
By Sharon Knolle
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Robin Williams's acclaimed turn as a disturbed photo clerk who stalks a seemingly perfect family in One Hour Photo would have been regarded as a major departure for the manic comedian just one year ago. However, following on the heels of two other dark roles in Insomnia and Death to Smoochy, the movie-going public is less likely to be shocked at seeing how creepy - and eerily calm - Williams can be. One Hour Photo - which may do for Fotomats what Jaws did for going to the beach - was actually made prior to both Insomnia and Death to Smoochy. That made Williams' casting a bit of a stumbling block for Mark Romanek, a music video vet who makes his feature film debut with the movie. "I thought it was a dark, strange European-style thing and (to try to land a movie star) would be like planning on winning the lottery. It just wasn't going to happen," recalls Romanek. "I thought, 'Robin Williams is worth $600 million. Who's going to believe him as a guy who works for minimum wage?'" But then Romanek remembered one of Williams' early films, Seize the Day. "It's a very raw, naked, emotionally violent film that he's amazing in," he says. "And I just started thinking that a movie star in this role is really kind of subversive and more interesting than just some good indie actor."
Romanek, whose emblematic videos include Nine Inch Nails' "Closer," cast a critical eye back on Williams' career and, "realized that a lot of his roles tended to be obsessive loners, from The Fisher King to Awakenings to even Good Will Hunting, where he's a guy who's obsessed with his dead wife. So I thought this might actually be a crystallization of all these characters he has played." All doubts were squelched after a drab make-over (or, rather, make-under) for Williams which turned him into the drone-like photo clerk Sy Parrish, who works in a soulless megamart. "The second he walked out on the set (in costume) no one could picture anyone else in this part. Literally, he was the guy," says Romanek. Agrees co-star Michael Vartan of TV's Alias, "I was there when they started doing the initial hair and make-up tests and it was just weird. It's so not him. It was really a huge shock. Even while I was acting, I'd have these thoughts of 'Oh my God, that is so not Robin Williams.' To see him so funny so alive, and so brilliant and to turn into this gray, turned-off sadsack is amazing." Even Williams says, "The good news is, I can watch One Hour Photo and not see myself. I love the idea of this shot where I'm walking down the aisle and I disappear, I literally blend into the blues and the whites of the store." "Is it being released too early? Will the Academy still remember it, do you think?" asks a concerned Vartan, who is genuinely anxious for Williams to be recognized for his work in Photo.
Williams himself isn't talking Oscar, but he is proud of his work in the film. "As a whole piece, I think it's the best I've done in a long time." He's glad to be getting positive reviews again after suffering withering criticism for such relentlessly schmaltzy fare as Patch Adams. Elaborating on why he opted to take a chance on a first-time director, Williams says, "The piece was so well-written that you feel a certain freedom from the beginning to just inhabit it. When I saw Mark's videos, I said 'I have to be part of this.' He was shocked, he was really surprised." "When I met him for lunch, I realized that he had this really deep affinity for this character," adds Romanek. "He loved this character and wanted to play him." Having been an only child, Williams could relate to Sy's loneliness and the need for fantasy. "Sy's created a whole life for himself with other people's photographs. His own life is just so mundane," explains the actor. When Williams told Romanek, 'I'd love to do your film,' the fledgling director said to himself, "This isn't how I've been led to believe it works with movie stars. I thought he was kidding or that, 'I want to do this film' means something else in Hollywood."
But Williams was as good as his word, and Vartan and Gladiator's Connie Nielsen quickly came aboard as well. "The first time I read this script, I was like, 'Wow,' and I loved the feeling about the family and Sy and there was a certain measure of empathy with Sy as well," says Nielsen. Romanek's inspiration for the role of Sy came from a real photo clerk who worked in a Rexall near where he lived. "The guy was little bit too effusive and he was trying a little bit too hard to be friendly. And it seemed kind of sad to me and it just stuck in my head," he says. Making the film, which was budgeted at $12 million, posed some typical indie-film difficulties such as a problematic location - an abandoned Wal-Mart that had to be outfitted and stocked from scratch and suffered sewage flooding - and a tense, uneasy mood that infected the entire cast. "I didn't want to still be in character when I got home because I'd terrify my own children," Williams laughs. "The containment, the confinement," was the toughest part, according to the ebullient actor. "For me, the character comes into work, and he's not dead, but he's just lifeless, and he sees the mirror that says 'Check Your Smile' and he puts on this smile and goes into the Fotomat. He functions with people, but when he's not at work, he turns it off. He's just very much contained, and then when he goes off, Mark described it as the bolts coming out, like blowing, popping."
When those bolts do blow, Sy goes after Vartan's character for not living up to his picture-perfect image. Filming this climactic confrontation was "the most emotionally intense scene I've ever filmed," says Vartan. "Usually, I show up, I hit my mark and say my lines and I try to give as much as I can between 'action' and 'cut' but once it's over, it's over. But after that scene, I remember driving home that night and thinking, 'What the f*ck was that? What just happened?'" For the critical scene, Romanek instructed Vartan to hyperventilate. "So I started hyperventilating," says Vartan. "And during the scene, I remember thinking, 'Oh my god, I'm going to pass out!' And I just remember being in this really weird state of mind which is totally foreign for me as an actor. Unknowingly, I was a method actor for an afternoon. It was terrifying. I was not a big fan of how I felt that day." That's when Williams, the comedian, came to the rescue, blowing off much-needed tension between takes. "I think that was the saving grace for those two days," Vartan continues. "You'd hear 'cut' and there was this really weird silence where almost everyone was thinking, 'What are we supposed to do?' Robin was just being himself and it was great because we needed to cut that mood." Adds Nielsen, "He's such a professional. He can sense when it's the right time to say, 'Let's break it up for a second.'"
"I always had to be the bad guy and say, 'We've got to get going,'" remembers Romanek. "And Robin would just snap right back down into Sy. And you'd say, 'Cut,' and he'd go crazy again. He needed to blow off that steam. I don't think he'd be able to give such a subtle, nuanced performance if he didn't." Asked about the film's austere look and minimalist style, Romanek confesses, "Well, I hope it's not too obvious Kubrick-itis, but yeah, he's the reason I became a filmmaker. I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was nine years old. I guess some people saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan and decided to be in a band, I saw 2001 and I thought, 'I want to be like that guy. That seems like a really cool job.'" His attention to detail - and his taking 13 months to cut the film - confirm Romanek's Kubrick-itis. Recalls Vartan, "I remember filming scenes at the supermarket with Robin, and Mark would yell 'Cut' and literally 30 feet down the aisle there was one cereal box that was slightly askew and at the time, I remember thinking, 'Are you kidding me? If the audience is watching that cereal box, we're in big trouble.' But then seeing it, and knowing that that's the kind of attention to detail that he brought to this movie, that's what makes a great director. I think he's a genius. That word is really thrown around a lot, but he's amazing." Besides the obvious Kubrick influence, Romanek cites 'lonely man' movies of the '70s that he grew up on like The Tenant and The Passenger and The Conversation as influences. The filmmaker's greatest fear now that his film is slowly being rolled out to theaters is that it will be perceived as a formulaic Domestic Disturbance-type thriller. "I don't see it as a thriller. I think of this movie as this creepy love story," insists Romanek. "He's in love with this family and what they represent to him and his love just sort of manifests itself in incorrect ways. I have enormous sympathy for Sy. I regard him in a way as a creepy saint. He's like an avenging angel." Recounts Williams, "Someone came up to me at Sundance and said, 'That was creepy in a good way.' I went, 'Thank you?' For me, one of the great movies of all time was M (Fritz Lang's German classic about a child murderer), and I think, hey if I can get into that area (that's great). Those characters are very much part of who we are as human beings. This character is part of a culture where we fixate on other people's lives." Does Williams agree with Sy that we only exist in our photos? "Well, it's interesting as a film actor to think, 'What have I left behind?' I've made some good films that have had an effect. And it's a weird thing when you can say, 'Yeah, I've done something. I existed.'," he reflects. | Commenting on his career resurgence, which includes returning to stand-up, Williams says, "It's just going through new plasma, new energy. The next thing is to just keep doing interesting parts. You ask yourself, 'What's your legacy, what have you done?' And you just want to keep pushing the envelope." | |
As for how the film has affected their chances of frequenting their own local one hour photo, Williams admits he and his family rely on private photography and digital cameras to avoid having personal photos fall into the wrong hands. Vartan, who suffered through a two-week shoot to produce what is supposed to be several years' worth of family snaps in the film, says it's not an issue - he hasn't taken a photo in 10 years or more. And Nielsen laughs, "I think the clerks are more scared of the people who bring in the photos."
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