Mrs. Doubtfire actor Sally Field reveals the moment on the set that finally caused her to break character. Field starred opposite Robin Williams in the memorable 1993 comedy, portraying his estranged wife, Miranda Hillard. Throughout the film, Williams’s character attempts to win back his wife and children amid their recent divorce. He resorts to creating an alter ego, an elderly British nanny named Mrs. Doubtfire, to spend more time with his three children.
The late Robin Williams was known for his countless, hilarious roles that he was featured in for over five decades. The actor also had quite the reputation offscreen for being funny and outgoing in his personal life. He often cracked jokes while filming to entertain other cast members, but Field was not an easy audience. In an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, Field says Williams’s attempts to make her break character while filming Mrs. Doubtfire were unsuccessful. Still, another one of her costars managed to accomplish the feat. Read her comments below to see what finally made Field crack up on set:
“It would drive him [Williams] crazy that he couldn’t break me up in the scene. I just went, ‘I’m a professional, Robin… Just keep going. If you do it, I promise you, I won’t laugh.’ And I never did. And towards the end, we were finishing the last sequences, which were the last part of the picture. We were around this dinner table forever [for that scene] in a restaurant. And Pierce Brosnan made this inappropriate [fart] noise on his arm. And I fell down laughing. I mean, that was it. They had to cut for the day, practically. And Robin said, ‘Well, who knew that it was only potty humor that you were gonna laugh at?’ It was Pierce that made me laugh and broke me up, and not Robin.”
Field Says Robin Williams’s Inability To Make Her Laugh “Drove Him Nuts”
Although Brosnan once played James Bond, the suave and formal British secret service agent, his actions while filming Mrs. Doubtfire couldn’t have been further from his 007 counterpart. The fact that Brosnan was able to make Field hysterical by merely making a crude noise reportedly irked Williams. Field said his failure to make her laugh “drove him nuts.” In prior interviews, Field admitted that working with Williams can be a bit overbearing since his high energy levels were challenging for other cast members to match while filming scenes for a prolonged time.
It is easy to see how Field may have grown tired of Williams’s antics while working on Mrs. Doubtfire, considering his physical liveliness and propensity to deliver comedic lines of dialogue rapidly. However, these same qualities are also the ones that make his characters so unique and memorable. Williams was known for wanting to bring a bit of laughter and happiness into people’s lives, so it is no surprise that he was bothered by the fact that his humor didn’t affect Field as intended. A simple fart noise bested the famed comedian.
Williams and Field Bonded Over Video Games While Filming Mrs. Doubtfire
Field may not have found Williams’s humor quite as entertaining as others, but the two did manage to bond over a common shared interest, Nintendo’s video game Zelda. According to Field, both stars were big fans of the game and Williams would come over to her house to play it, creating some of her most cherished memories with the actor. Developers and gamers know the camaraderie that can take place while playing together, hence the increased emphasis on in-game chat modes and forums today. Brosnan may have beaten his Mrs. Doubtfire costar to the punchline, but Field sided with Williams when it came time to save Hyrule.
Source: Yahoo! Entertainment