e is like no other. In that respect, Robin Williams shares something
in common with his robotic alter-ego Andrew in the film Bicentennial Man.
Williams' dexterity with comedy--physical and verbal, subtle and
overt--is unmatched. And it shows, even in casual conversation. One moment Williams will be bounding out of his
chair in some demonstrative, humorous skit; the next, he's subdued and
serious, his words illustrating the depth of his humanity. Williams,
who began his career as a stand-up comedian, first found fame when he
guest-starred on the 1970s sitcom Happy Days as Mork, the manic
extraterrestrial humanoid with an odd handshake. That guest spot
turned into the series Mork & Mindy, and from there, Williams made the
leap to the big screen, starring in such films as Good Morning, Vietnam, Dead
Poets Society, The Fisher King, The Birdcage, Mrs. Doubtfire, and
Patch Adams. Currently Williams is starring in Bicentennial Man, which is based on Isaac Asimov's robot fiction. He recently sat down with Science Fiction Weekly to talk about the challenges of translating Asimov's work to film.
Did you read Isaac Asimov's stories before Bicentennial Man came up?
Williams: I read I, Robot in college. "Bicentennial Man" I'd only read after we
decided to do the movie. And then I read The Positronic Man, which is the
book that Asimov wrote with Robert Silverberg. It's pretty
interesting, because [the movie] keeps to the spirit of what he was
capturing with robots. It's weird that Asimov has never been made into
a movie before; I'm pretty sure that's correct.
When you first read the script, what made you say, "This is a role I
want to do"?
Williams: Because it talks about artificial intelligence and
human behavior. I've always been fascinated by both. Hence acting.
That's kind of the drill, really, I mean, to find different aspects of
it. But with this, it's the idea of a creature evolving. And Asimov
was basically talking about a moral, humane creature, of robots as
being these sentient beings who were bound by the three laws like
commandments. They can't violate them, even if they wanted to.
How did you research your role as a robot, and later android?
Williams: It's only during the research when you start finding out how far they are,
robotically, now. Not just robotic factories, which have existed since
the '60s, but real artificial intelligence in a robotic shell. The first ones would take 30
minutes to get from here to that tree. To cross this room, [designers]
would put chairs and different obstacles [in the robot's way], and it
would start and move its way, and then go, "Ooh, microphone" [when it
encountered an object]. It was basically scanning and plotting a path.
So I looked at some of that. And then there's an initial demonstration
of a Honda robot that looks like an old Jewish man in Miami, because
it walks like this...
[Williams jumps up to demonstrate, shuffling along.]
...with the sensors in the feet, it kind of goes like this, "Hello....hold
the door...hold the door..." And then if it senses something, it's like,
oh, hold the door. It's very slow, and even then they have to tether
it, because it costs so much.
So you look at the research and you see what's the potential, and kind
of extrapolate that. I mean, Asimov thought that they would have a
robotic intelligence, an AI that would function as a sentient,
interactive [robot] by 2030. He predicted that. Talking to some
computer scientists, they say that in the next 20 years, things will
change as much as the last 200 years. Especially if you talk to people
about quantum computing. Which I think is what Asimov was going for
when he talked about positronic brains. A positron is just a particle
with no charge, but I think he was getting at the idea of
micro-nanotechnology, of a brain working like a quantum computer. So
is it possible? Yeah, and I was just thinking about, well, what would
it be like to have a being that from its very inception was curious,
intuitive, drawn to certain things, fascinated by certain things?
What do you think is the element of fable in this story?
Williams: It's more
the allegory. You get to look at human behavior through the eyes of,
like in a fable, of an animal. You're
telling these stories, but basically you're talking about us and how
we respond. In Asimov's books, it was much more that robots were very
much a minority, treated as the ultimate minority. There were riots,
and the quest for robotic civil rights was very intense. There used to
be a courtroom scene in this film, in the very beginning, where I had
to go plead for my freedom, and basically say how I am a slave, an
involuntary slave.
Two hundred years is an awfully long time. How long do you think you
would want to live?
Williams: I would want to live? It depends; depends is
the operative word there. If you're just sitting there like this
[Williams settles into a fixed, stiff-necked position and changes his
voice] going, "Oh what a great day. This is wonderful. I'm 199 years
old today. Happy birthday to me." No, if it's that, no, no. It depends
on what the quality of life is. I don't know. I think mortality has a
purpose. You have a life, and you go through all of that, and if you
start to push it too far, I don't know.
You're such a visual, and physical, actor. And yet for so much of this
movie, you were under a suit.
Williams: Yeah, but even in that, people said
they could read me through it. When they put other people in the suit,
it didn't work as well.
Was it difficult to bring that across?
Williams: No, because I took a class
at Juilliard called mask. This is mask; this is basically the idea of a
neutral mask, this is a neutral face. Almost like Greek, in that
sense. [Andrew] looks like a statue at first. And it's just finding
all of those little things within there. And yet, it isn't wild, he's
not dancing around the room. That was left to Galatea, who's the next
generation. That's why he was fascinated by her; that she was so
physical, and so amazingly sexy as a robot. It's that idea of finding
within this thing [within Andrew] the slightest human movement, that
was what appealed to me.
How did you arrive at Andrew's voice?
Williams: It's hard to top HAL, after
that voice [William's intonation flattens out into a monotone modeled
after the HAL 9000 in 2001] which was very much the standard,
and has become standard for many things. Have you ever talked to
Wildfire, which is a totally automated phone answering service? People
think it's a person, because it's a very nice woman who answers. "Hi,
is Phil there?" "No, Phil's not here right now." "Well, can I leave a
message?" "You certainly can. If you wish to leave a message, press
one." And then after a while, you realize, I've been talking to a
machine.
Did you improvise a lot?
Williams: The thing that came when the robot fell
out of the window came from one time when I dropped my son's Furby.
Before, it [said], "Oh, yum, good." [Williams' voice takes on a
crazed feel.] I dropped it, and it went, "Ahhhhhhhh." And I immediately
thought I killed it. The voice synthesizer broke, and it sounded like
it was in awful pain.
What is it like working with director Chris Columbus, whom you've
partnered with twice before this movie?
Williams: He just has a great [style]. He gives me the freedom to try things, but he also has a vision of what he wants, which helps.
