“Mrs. Doubtfire” director Chris Columbus has a trove of behind-the-scenes footage demonstrating the creative genius of late actor and Hollywood legend Robin Williams, Business Insider reported.
Columbus described the unique approach Williams took to acting, and said Williams improvised so much during the filming of the classic movie that the final product was much different than what was originally scripted, according to Business Insider.
“It got to the point that I had to shoot the entire movie with four cameras to keep up with him,” Columbus said.
The famous director has over 972 boxes of outtakes and never-before seen footage that he intends to use to create a documentary about Williams, according to Business Insider.
Columbus said he embraced Williams’ creative approach right from the beginning and allowed the movie to shape itself based on whatever direction Williams took with the script.
“Early on in the process, he went to me, ‘Hey boss, the way I like to work, if you’re up for it, is I’ll give you three or four scripted takes, and then let’s play,” Columbus told Business Insider. “By saying that, what he meant was he wanted to improvise. And that’s exactly how we shot every scene. We would have exactly what was scripted, and then Robin would go off and it was something to behold.”
This was a very different process for everyone working on set, but the entire crew embraced the famous actor’s approach, Business Insider reported.
“None of us knew what he was going to say when he got going and so I wanted a camera on the other actors to get their reactions,” Columbus said.
“Did they watch everything? I don’t think so. We shot almost 2 million feet of film on that picture,” he added, according to Business Insider.
“There are roughly 972 boxes of footage from ‘Doubtfire’ — footage we used in the movie, outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage — in a warehouse somewhere and we would like to hire an editor to go in and look at all of that footage,” he said.
“We want to show Robin’s process. There is something special and magical about how he went about his work and I think it would be fun to delve into it,” Columbus told Business Insider. (RELATED: Ridley Scott Might Be Ready To Fight Anyone Who Doesn’t Like His New ‘Napoleon’ Movie)
“I mean, there’s 2 million feet of film in that warehouse so there could be something we can do with all of that.”
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the 1993 comedy, which remains one of Williams’ most iconic roles.