INTRODUCTION TRAILER STORY BACKGROUND CAST LOCATION REVIEWS
ROBIN WILLIAMS - Paul Barnell
Williams first captured the attention of the world as Mork from Ork on the hit series Mork & Mindy. Born in Chicago and raised in Michigan and California, he trained at New York's Julliard School under John Houseman.
An Academy Award-winning actor and a multiple Grammy-winning performer unparalleled in the scope of his imagination, Robin Williams continues to enhance his repertoire of indelible characters with several upcoming projects.
Williams recently appeared in David Duchovny's House of D. He completed principle photography on Patrick Stettner's The Night Listener, a drama co-starring Toni Colette. He is currently filming Barry Sonnenfeld's comedy R.V. for Sony Pictures. This fall Williams will begin principle photography on Warner Brothers August Rush, co-starring Freddie Highmore and Liv Tyler.
In 1997, Williams received Academy and Screen Actors Guild awards for his performance as Sean Maguire, the therapist who counsels Matt Damon's title character -- a math genius -- in Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting. The Academy previously nominated Williams for best actor in The Fisher King, Dead Poets Society, and Good Morning Vietnam. Williams garnered a special honor from the National Board of Review for his performance opposite Robert DeNiro in Awakenings. In 2005, Williams was honored with his sixth Golden Globe Award; he received the Cecil B. DeMille Award, for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.
Williams, who began his career as a stand-up comedian, is well known for monologues in which he makes free associative leaps punctuated by one liners about subjects as varied as politics, history, religion, ethnic strife and sex. Using only his voice, Williams created one of the most vivid characters in recent memory -- Aladdin's Blue Genie of the Lamp (which redefined how animations were voiced). For audio versions of his one-man shows and the children's record "Pecos Bill," Williams has won five Grammy Awards. His stage credits include a landmark production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Steve Martin, and, most recently, a short run in San Francisco of "The Exonerated."
Offstage, Williams takes great joy in supporting causes too numerous to identify -- covering the spectrum from health care and human rights, to education, environmental protection, and the arts. He toured the Middle East three times in as many years to help raise morale among the troops, and is perhaps best known philanthropically for his affiliation with Comic Relief.
