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Mrs Doubtfire actress pays tribute to Robin Williams perfectly.

 

 

 

 

 

Mara Wilson might be the only former child star to grow up, turn her back on Hollywood, and spend her time writing beautiful observations about the world.

Because she graciously reverted to a certain level of anonymity, you might not know who Mara Wilson is. She played Matilda in the movie Matilda and the younger daughter in Mrs Doubtfire.

She played Robin Williams‘ daughter in a movie, but as she recalls, she felt at times like he played her father in real life.

So, having worked with Robin when she was just a child, news of his death by suicide is heartbreaking for her in a more intimate way than most. She knew him, she played sock puppets with him on set, and she saw his legendary kindness up close.

Because she writes beautiful things for a living now and because he meant so very much to her, Mara Wilson wrote a beautiful thing about her friend Robin Williams.

She says on her blog, Mara Wilson Writes Stuff:

“Robin Williams, as I knew him, was warm, gentle, expressive, nurturing, and brilliant. While it can be hard for me to remember filming Doubtfire, I’ve been flooded with memories in the past few days. It’s humbling to know I am one of the few people who was there for these moments, that he’s no longer around to share them.”

Those memories include how he used to keep her and the other kids entertained between takes by impersonating a walrus with chopsticks, putting sock puppet plays on, and paying them the fragile, gentle attention of a man who felt more comfortable talking to children than to adults (a bit like Mrs Doubtfire).

That fragility wasn’t something Mara saw herself until she met Robin again as an adult:

Robin was so on so much of the time that I was surprised to hear my mother describe him as “shy.” “When he talks to you,” she told her friends, “he’ll be looking down at his shoes the whole time.” I figured he must have been different with grown-ups. I wouldn’t see that side of him myself until a few years later, when I was invited to be part of a table read of What Dreams May Come. He came alive in the reading, and had us all laughing at lunch, but my strongest impression came when we saw each other for the first time that day. Robin crossed to me from across the room, got down to my level, and whispered “Hi, how are you?” He asked how my family was doing, how school was, never raising his voice and only sometimes making eye contact. He seemed so vulnerable. “So this is what Mom meant,” I thought. It was as if I was seeing him for the first time. He was a person now.

The next time Mara saw Robin, he was filming on location at New York University, where she was studying. He was walking back to his trailer and she yelled his name. He turned and saw a girl in a black hoodie waving at him with the familiarity of someone who knew him, stopped, and realised who it was. They chatted about university and life.

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“It was small talk,” says Mara. “But something about the way Robin looked at me made it feel like he truly cared. This was someone for whom everything mattered.”

And what matters now, for Mara and for everyone who adored Robin Williams, is that we speak about the illness that took him from this world with candour. That we take depression and mental illness seriously, and find ways to protect those who are vulnerable to it.

True to her character and her way with words, Mara wrote on that subject with the eloquence of someone who knows what it’s like to see the darkness within someone consume them:

Mental health needs to be taken as seriously as physical health; the two are inseparable. But I am afraid people will romanticize what Robin went through. Please don’t romanticize mental anguish. I know many people who think to be an artist means you have to suffer, or at least wallow in old miseries. It’s not only an incorrect assumption — there are comedians who had happy upbringings, I swear — but it will only hurt them and the people who care about them. Artists who struggled with mental illness, trauma, disease, addiction (often the latter is a way of self-medicating after the first three) did not want or welcome it.

I don’t know if I’d consider myself an artist, but speaking as someone who sometimes makes stuff, my best work is created when I’m content and contemplative, looking back on painful times rather than in the middle of them.  To focus on someone’s pain instead of their accomplishments is an insult to them. As my friend Patrick put it, a person is a person first and a story second.

And finally, Mara writes about the profound and rather beautiful impact Robin Williams had on her as a child, and every child who watched him onscreen. “If you can affect someone when they’re young, you are in their heart forever. It is remarkable how many lives Robin touched, and how many people said, just as I had, that he reminded them of their fathers,” she writes.

“I suppose — could I really end this any other way? — we’re all his goddamn kids, too.”

And because we adore Mara Wilson for her intellect, sassiness, and sensitivity, here’s a bunch of pictures of her:

You might like to read some of our other stories on the one and only Robin Williams:

14 perfect moments Robin Williams made us laugh and cry.

 

Just hours after his death, someone called Robin Williams a coward. 

 

Why it’s OK to grieve for a famous stranger. We’re all mourning the death of Robin Williams.

 

The world owes Zelda Williams an apology.