The only time Robin Williams played a “flat-out” villain: “I did it once in a movie no one saw”

Robin Williams is one of those rare and special actors with the impressive ability to occupy all areas of the emotional spectrum in his performances, imbuing his dramatic roles with a sense of warmth while bringing his riotous sense of humour to comedic roles.

From his sensitive performance in Good Will Hunting and Dead Poets Society to the infectious charisma of his characters in Aladdin, Mrs Doubtfire and The Fisher King, the actor created a career based on the purest principles of entertainment, motivated by the sole task of making people laugh and feel something.

Through working with directors such as Terry Gilliam, Mike Nichols, Christopher Nolan and Gus Van Sant, his work reflected his ability to surprise and adapt to many different genres, reflecting his versatility and passion for honest storytelling.

However, while he has expanded his character work to a host of classic archetypes, there was one type of character that he only played once, despite his interest in dipping his toes into this realm of performance.

Over the years, Williams played everyone from an obsessive stalker, a Jewish drag club owner to a weathered college professor, becoming revered for his iconic character work and ability to bring richness to every role. His improvisational talents have imbued each role with his undeniable sense of humour and wit, tweaking the lines of characters and putting an irreplaceable stamp on them that couldn’t be achieved by anyone else.

However, the actor is certainly known for roles with a certain light-heartedness to them, something that he reflected on when discussing his desire to play more villains. Throughout his career, the most notable villain he played was in the 1996 film The Secret Agent, directed by Christopher Hampton. The film follows a pornographic bookseller who acts as a double agent for the Russian government, providing information on an anarchist organisation.

When discussing his career goals and whether he was looking for different types of roles later on in his career, Williams said, “No. The same drive is there. I mean, now it’s kind of tempered with: When you’re 47, you’re just more comfortable with who you are, and you start to say, ‘This I could pull off; this I can’t.’ I still am drawn toward [movies] like Awakenings, which to me was a prime example of what I ideally would like to do more of. I still would like to play a flat‑out villain.”

He continued: “I did it once, in a movie that no one saw. The Secret Agent. I played a character called the Professor, who’s a chemist who totally despises people ‑ he’s just lethal. And I found out later that Theodore Kaczynski loved that book, and particularly that character, which is a little frightening. But it was the only time I played a character ‑ there was nothing redeeming about him. I came home one night; I scared the s‑‑‑ out of Marsha. She said, ‘We need to let that go now’”. 

While this role is the most obviously evil, he has also played morally ambiguous characters like the one in One Hour Photo, showing that his range has no boundaries and there were perhaps many other unseen talents of his that weren’t utilised as often on the big screen.