Robin Williams remembered at 'Mrs Doubtfire' 25th anniversary reunion

Stars of classic comedy movie Mrs Doubtfire paid a touching tribute to the memory the late of Robin Williams on US TV yesterday.

Pierce Brosnan, Lisa Jakub, Matthew Lawrence and Mara Wilson marked 25 years since the movie’s release with a special interview on the Today show.

Sharing stories about the making of the movie, Jakub, who played Lydia Hillard in the movie, said there was ‘a sense that no time has passed’ since the movie hit screens in 1993.

Now a yoga teacher and writer, she added that his openness with her when she was young was something she took into adulthood.

“One of the most powerful things for me about working with him is that he was very open and honest with me, talking about his issues with addiction and depression,” she said.

“That was so powerful to me at 14. I have struggled with anxiety my whole life, and the fact that he was so honest about those things had a major impact on me. We needed that 25 years ago, and we still need it now.”

It wasn’t the only powerful message he had for his young co-stars.

“Robin was like a guiding source,” said Lawrence, who still works as an actor.

“He would just all of a sudden, out of the blue, look over and be like ‘Don’t do drugs. They really messed up my brain, I’m serious. Do not do them.’ That stuck with me.”

Brosnan, who played Stu, the new boyfriend of Williams’ character’s estranged wife, played by Sally Field, also spoke about Williams’ inimitable talent on set.

“There was Robin in the makeup trailer. He had a Hawaiian shirt on, big hairy arms, cargo pants, big hairy legs, but he had the head of Mrs. Doubtfire. It was so bizarre!” he said, before launching into an impression of Williams as the Scots nanny.

“Oh, hello, Pierce! Oh, you look so handsome! Oooh, give us a kiss! Don’t smudge me.”

He added that some takes saw the young cast cleared off the set.

“You were all dismissed when they came to do the close-ups!” Brosnan went on. “And it was on my close-up — he just unleashed the most bluest, the craziest innuendos about Sally’s character.”

But Brosnan added that it was the nature of the story – a man going to extreme measures to see his children amidst an acrimonious divorce – that will always stick with him.

“It’s really ingrained in my heart because the nature of the story, which is very empowering for young men and women or families that are divorced. I think it’s a very healing film in many ways.”

Williams took his own life in August, 2014. It later emerged that he’d been diagnosed with a degenerative neurological condition.

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