Robin
Williams plays Gabriel Noone in The Night Listener
Robin
Williams delivers a compelling performance as a storyteller caught in
the middle of a “mystery of the heart” in The Night Listener.
Based on the real experiences of his friend, the author Armistead Maupin
(Tales of the City), Williams plays a late night radio presenter who
beguiles his audience with tales of his own life.
Gabriel Noone is in the middle of the painful break up of a long-term
relationship when a publisher asks him to read the memoir of a young
survivor of a horrific, abused childhood.
“He’s
immediately sympathetic towards this child who has suffered terribly,”
says Williams. “And who wouldn’t be?
The abuse described in the book is beyond awful.”
Noone strikes up a telephone friendship with the seriously ill
14 year old, played by Rory Culkin, and his understandably protective,
adoptive mother (an excellent Toni Colette).
“It’s
a kind of surrogate father son relationship,”
says Williams. “And although they haven’t
met face to face, he can feel the bond with this boy and it gets stronger
and stronger.”
When Noone does in fact suggest a face-to-face meeting, it’s always
cancelled at the last minute. And when his former lover, Jess (Bobby
Cannavale) hears both the boy and his mother speak on the telephone,
he plants a seed of doubt in his mind over their real identities –
and, indeed, the truth of the story Noone has been told.
Based
on the book of the same name by Maupin, The Night Listener is a thriller
which explores the nature of story telling, truth and illusion.
Williams,
55, was born in Chicago and studied at the prestigious Juiliard School
of Music and Drama before embarking on a career as a stand up comedian
– emerging amongst a golden generation for American comedy which
included the late John Belushi, Eddie Murphy, Steve Martin and others.
He
won an Oscar for Good Will Hunting for his portrayal of a therapist
who counsels a maths genius, played by Matt Damon, in Good Will Hunting
and his impressive CV includes Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society,
The Fisher King, Jumanji, Insomnia, One Hour Photo and more recently
RV.
Are
you pleased with the film?
Yeah
I think it has a lot nuance and it’s interesting to have a film
where you have to engage, you have to track it and then you go ‘oh,
wait a minute..’ and he’s worked very hard, Patrick (Stettner,
director), has tweaked and changed it for the better..
There’s
a big debate with your career, the lighter films and the darker ones.
Oh
that’s OK, that’s part of the drill.
But
surely that’s what you would wish for, the chance to do different
things?
Oh
yeah, I don’t want to do one thing and it’s fun to have
the chance to do something like this. When you get a chance to play
a character like this it’s great. Armistead sent it to me and
said ‘just read it and see what you think..’ I did and I
thought it was really interesting. And then Patrick shot it pretty much
on the run in New York which was also great. In the end you go ‘yes,
it’s worth doing..’
Do
you think ‘well I’ve done a comedy now I’m going to
do a more serious role?’
It’s
not like I have to do one comedy, two dramas, it’s more that ‘this
is a great character..’ If it turns out that I do three comedies
in a row or three dark characters in a row, that’s great. I’m
not really looking to balance this. Sometimes agents go ‘pst,
maybe you should do one financial movie now, one big comedy…’
but it’s like these come along and you go ‘yeah.’
And you’re not in it for the money at this stage, you are in it
for the glory and the chance to work with interesting people and interesting
material and interesting people.
So it’s a chance to explore different things?
Yes,
behaviour, With something like this it’s like the bookend of One
Hour Photo, the receiving end of that sociopath, you know, what’s
that like? And I have met people somewhat like her, I mean, I haven’t
met the full on Munchausen’s Ventriloquism but you come across
people who go ‘you know I met you in Oklahoma..’ and you
go ‘maybe when I was drinking, cool..’ And then she says
‘you know I travelled all around the country with you, I worked
for you for six months’ and then you realise ‘no, you didn’t’
and the minute you kind of doubt that they get quite angry, ‘No!
I did!’
And
celebrity does draw that kind of person towards it.
It
draws it and people create complete histories and probably what happens
is that they have told other people these stories and then they convince
themselves. And maybe, in their minds, it is real. With this woman,
I don’t know. When you see the end of the film you realise that
it is continuing, she will continue this with as many different people
as did the woman with Armistead. The real woman had a lot of people
scammed and she preyed off of that idea of people’s compassion,
the desire to help. And it is a violation; it’s kind of like a
mental cuckold. I was talking to a journalist who was doing a story
about Armistead and the real incident and he tried to contact some of
the other people and they didn’t want to talk about it, they were
too embarrassed, they felt like they had been scammed, it made them
look stupid. It was like ‘how could people believe this was a
kid?’ but if you don’t know, if you have been told it was
a child you would talk to him in a different way, you would listen.
What
would you like your work to say about you?
That
I’m a human being, that helps. You know, with a slight intelligence,
a functioning intelligence.
Is
it like a switch you flip where you can be funny or serious?
Yes.
I think it’s a conscious choice, I can turn it off or on according
to need or according to inspiration, if someone says something that
seems like a nice opportunity (switches to Spanish voice) I will go
that way, I will attempt to find the comedy in a Spanish maid suddenly
going ‘I’m kidding Mr Armistead, it’s me! I’m
back!’ Yeah, there are moments and then others when you realise,
no. We can talk straight if you want.
Armistead
was talking about all the people that this woman had duped.
She
duped many people and a lot of people won’t talk about it, he
will.
Have
you ever had anything like that happen to you?
No,
I’ve done a lot of Make A Wish kids and I’ve never had one
call for me from the Bahamas going ‘I’m 30! Thanks for the
money for the dialysis machine! I’m riding it!’ (makes a
motorbike noise) I’ve never been duped like that but I’ve
met people who have been.
Was
there a point in your career when you thought you could take more serious
roles, darker roles?
Insomnia
opened up a whole kind of other side, the dark kind of stranger roles
and it was like ‘great..’ That was a wonderful access. It’s
like if you play a video game when you access the next level (deep announcer’s
voice) “You are now welcome to the dark parts! Welcome!”
If
you get two equally good scripts, one comedy one drama, which one do
you take?
Which
one pays more? (laughs) No, I wouldn’t know, whichever character
I hadn’t done before and the other elements like director and
cast. And then it’s hard if they are both equally good. Finding
a good script is really difficult and the scariest thing of all is when
they say about a script that’s not right, ‘we will fix it..’
it’s like before you get on the Titanic and you see a big hole.
In process it’s too late.
How
did you prepare for this character? He’s based on Armistead, who
is a friend, is that where you started?
Yeah
but it’s only Armistead about 20 per cent, like it’s only
Armistead in that there’s somewhat of a southern accent. Armistead
is very elegant man, a very articulate man, in San Francisco he is like
our second mayor. It’s like the idea of having him and that kind
of persona of Armistead and then it’s this other guy. So I wasn’t
doing an impression of Armistead. I was just taking a little bit of
him for a base. It’s like when I did Awakenings it’s not
fully Oliver Sachs,
Is
it just as gratifying when a film like RV succeeds despite the critical
reaction?
Oh
yeah, the fact that we survived the initial maelstrom is wonderful and
the fact that you get people coming up and saying ‘I took my family
we laughed our asses off’ And that’s what it was made for
- you have a good time, I wasn’t trying to change your life. But
with this one if people go and affected by it then that’s what
we made it for and if it disturbs you on that level. if you examine
the nature of connection and storytelling,
You
won your Oscar for a serious role and not a comedy performance. It seems
harder to win one for comedy.
With
the comedians they are treated like ‘oh yes, they’re there
and sure it pays for the industry and sure, that’s how it started,
but they are damaged people, that’s what they do they are just
this side of mentally challenged. They are clients really.’ But
you know, I would honour all the guys who didn’t get one and mention
all the names – go right back to the start, you know Chaplin having
to wait until he’s pretty much been thrown out of America –
Keaton, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, The Marx Brothers. Comedy is a
great art when it works. I’ve never seen anything funnier than
Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor, that scene at the dinner table.
That alone should get an award if you are just talking about sheer funny
but they are always talking about ‘well, is it meaningful?’
Well, sure it’s meaningful if you come out and you had a great
laugh.
How
old were you when you realised you had this unique comic voice?
I
haven’t realised that yet. But I’ve realised that it was
working pretty well when I was in my twenties when I was finding like
you say a unique voice versus a combination of other things. There was
a big benefit show in San Francisco and I really started to have a good
time and realised like ‘this is me, this is not like kind of Jonathan
Winters..’ Everyone starts out being somebody else.
Christopher
Reeve was a close friend of yours. What’s it been like for you
with the new Superman film with Brandan Routh?
I
see posters and I go ‘it’s him, it’s Chris!’
It’s like he’s back and it’s kind of wonderful. I
hear it’s elegant and the kid is great and I think it’s
a great tribute to him. Number one they made it again but it will bring
back the memory of Chris. And you know Warner Bros have been very supportive.
They made this medal which is like a dog tag for his foundation and
it’s kind of wonderful. Superman is a great character and Chris
loved doing it, he took great pride in that.
You
worked with Christopher Nolan on Insomnia and now there’s talk
that you might play The Joker if he does another Batman movie. Would
you make the character darker?
That
would be wonderful. And there’s a lot of places to go with a character
like that. I think you could explore how bright and how nasty and funny
he is. I guess that’s what Kevin (Spacey) did with Lex Luthor
(in Superman Returns), make him really funny but still damaged.
Toni
Colette is seriously creepy in The Night Listener. What is she like
to work with?
She
is amazing to work with. She is a chameleon and coming from me that’s
a compliment. She really transforms herself; she can go from being drop
dead gorgeous to being vulnerable to being hideously frightening. She
is a great actress. And kick ass funny.
