Without Robin Williams, Steven Spielberg Couldn’t Have Made His Most Personal $322M Movie With Liam Neeson

Steven Spielberg is known for his phenomenal filmmaking. He is the most commercially successful director in this history but even the best often need the help of others in doing what they do they best. One such instance from Spielberg’s career is when he had to rely on his friend Robin Williams to make one of his greatest movies.

American actor Robin Williams is the greatest comedians of all times. While he has starred in dramas and comedy movies alike, he is predominantly popular for bringing in that slight touch of humor to all of his roles.  So, it’s not that hard to tell that how Williams could have been Spielberg’s greatest soldiers during the making of one of the greatest films.

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Steven Spielberg Greatly Depended on Robin Williams

Robin Williams had worked with Steven Spielberg in the 1991 movie Hook which follows the story of an adult Peter Pan who having forgotten his childhood, is living in the real world with his wife (Wendy’s granddaughter) and two children as Peter Banning. Although the movie was a commercial success, it failed to achieve the expected box-office collection mark, thus, disappointing Spielberg.

Steven Spielberg’s 1994 movie Schindler’s List is one of the greatest movies that he has ever directed. It is an epic biographical drama that follows Liam Neeson’s character of a German businessman Oskar Schindler who saved a lot of Jewish refugees by employing them in his factories during World War II. The movie was very emotional and had a gruesome plot that frequently made things hard for Spielberg.

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This is where Robin Williams became the Jaws director’s safety net as Spielberg would often call the former which makes Williams an intangible part of the project despite him not appearing in it. The Dead Poets Society actor was an emotionally intelligent person who had the gift of bringing joy to such a huge crowd. Williams’ ability to understand human grief and uplift people was seen in movies like Patch Adams.

Steven Spielberg was Emotionally Invested in Schindler’s List

No matter how great or ordinary, grief is an emotion that every person feels in their lifetime making it an inevitable part of being human. Steven Spielberg is also one of the many people in the world who have experienced grief as he had to confront certain very disturbing elements of his childhood such as antisemitism.

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Although the movie was filmed in Kraków, Spielberg felt angry instead of sad when they were visiting Auschwitz. In an interview, he described his emotional state of mind, saying: “I was hit in the face with my personal life. My upbringing. My Jewishness. The stories my grandparents told me about the Shoah. And Jewish life came pouring back into my heart. I cried all the time.”

The air of the set during the filming of the movie was so serious that Spielberg has to be praised for picking up the courage and being brave enough to embark on a journey that would on one hand, undoubtedly bring him great pain but at the same time, bring forth a very important part of the world’s history to the notice of millions of people.

Source: Giant Freakin Robot