Screen debut ‘scarier than Hamlet’

Press, 28 December 1989, Page 15

Screen debut ‘scarier than Hamlet’

Robin Williams madt his film debut in the offbeat musical version of the story “Popeye” (Three, tonight 7.30). The stylised and fanciful movie, which follows the adventures of the famous “sailor man,” including his first encounters with Olive Oyl and the amazing properties of spinach, created much interest when it hit the big screen. Now, on the small screen, Williams can be seen in one of his most diverse and energetic roles yet. Williams regarded “Po-

peye” as one of the most difficult first movie projects he could have chosen. “Everybody knows ‘Popeye’ and. that’s scary — more scary than doing Hamlet. You can do Hamlet knowing the audience will accept variations. “But people have seen Popeye with the same big arms, one eye and pipe for more than fifty years and if you don’t do it right you know every little kid will go ‘you aren’t him’.” Williams started preparing for the role nine months before filming began in Malta. He spent

three hours a day practising tap dancing, acrobatics and comedy falls and mastering complex dialogue like the “exploitakashin of an infink.” Williams, a stand-up comic and film and television actor who is famous for his roles as the off-the-wall alien Mork in “Mork and Mindy,” Adrian Croneur in “Good’ Morning Vietnam” and John Keating in “Dead Poets’ Society,” dislikes being referred to as a comic genius. Shrugging it off with a silly voice and a joke, he

says “the pressure is just incredible!” “If you really start to •believe it all, you’ll be screwed for life.” Williams, it seems, has always been funny, being voted “most humorous” and "most likely to succeed” by graduating classmates at his Californian high school. He says, though, that he was dreadfully shy in his early school days, when his family moved frequently around America. After briefly studying political science, Williams changed to theatre and enrolled at Juillard Acad-

emy in New York for three years. Moving to San Francisco, he joined a comedy workshop and began performing in nightclubs and in 1976 headed for Los Angeles and the “Comedy Store,” a regular performing spot for upcoming comedians. Williams was spotted by casting agents, who though his mobile face and off-beat sense of humour could find a place on television. A test appearance on long-running sitcom “Happy Days” as Mork saw his career, and his own series, launched.