William Bibbiani interviews Robin Williams and Bobcat Goldthwaite!

Bobcat Goldthwait’s brilliant new black comedy World’s Greatest Dad premieres in theaters this Friday, but right now Geekscape has roundtable interviews with writer/director Goldthwaite, and his stars Robin Williams and Alexie Gilmore!

Sadly, it is almost impossible to discuss World’s Greatest Dad without discussing its more shocking twists and turns, so we here at Geekscape are posting the largest SPOILER WARNING!!! possible right at the top of these delightful interviews about life, death, sex, nudity and what all of those things have to do with World’s Greatest Dad.

ALEXIE GILMORE:

How was it playing Robin Williams’ love interest?

Alexie Gilmore: Very cool, I’ve got to say. You work with somebody like Robin, and it’s like, impossible to look bad. It’s like wearing diamonds. You’re going to look good. So I was really, really lucky to be playing opposite him so much, and Daryl Sabara (who plays Robin Williams’ son) who is extremely talented as well, and Bobcat just made this amazing script. I mean, as soon as I read it I was like, “Uh, I’d love to be in this. I’d love to be a part of it.” And then I got to be in it, so it’s pretty cool.

Were you worried about “keeping up” with Robin before you got on set with him?

Alexie Gilmore: (Laughs) – Yeah, I was definitely intimidated, but as soon as I got on set and I met Robin, he was saying, “It is such an honor to meet you.” It made me feel so special, you know? I just felt so fortunate that there was no ego on set at all, and Bobcat really made a point of making sure I felt comfortable as well. Because sometimes we’d improv some scenes, and he’d like, “I just want to make sure that you’re not losing your lines or anything.” I know that you’re dealing with all these comedians and everyone’s just all over each other, but everyone was just so respectful in that way.

Despite the presence of so many comedians, World’s Greatest Dad is in many ways a very serious film. What was the atmosphere between the shots?

Alexie Gilmore: Oh, pretty light. I mean, Bobcat would come to the set with a shower cap on, or a kilt. Every day was a new day. It was always exciting. So it was definitely light, and everyone having a good time in between. And I think that’s the great thing about the movie. It has a good balance of that comedy and darkness, and you see how close they are, too. I think he balanced that very well on this film.

You got to make out with Robin Williams and Henry Simmons (a little bit)…

Alexie Gilmore: Yeah, Henry and I don’t actually make out, but there’s a lot of flirting going on there.

That’s quite a dichotomy!

Alexie Gilmore: Yeah! It was. It was fun to be able to play… not just the arm candy, or just the girlfriend, that there was stuff going on underneath it all, and to be a person that people are not really sure about. “Is she really aware of how mean she can be sometimes?” It’s been funny to see the reaction [from] people, like we were at the CineVegas Film Festival and this woman in front, like, hated me. Everything that came out of my mouth, every time I said something she was like “Oh my God!”

…And it was so funny because we were all sitting behind her, me and Bobcat and the Darko guys, we were all just laughing like, “I guess she doesn’t know that she’s talking outside.” I think that’s very much Bobcat’s style, too. I think he pushes people’s buttons a little bit, and he knows how to do that in such a way that makes people really feel things.

Was there any special preparation you underwent to gear up for this role?

Alexie Gilmore: Yeah, I interviewed a lot of bitches. (Laughs.) When I read it I was like, “I know this girl.” Everyone knows a girl like that, but for me I didn’t see her as an evil person. I saw her as someone who really thought she was always doing the best thing. So for me, the key to playing her was really playing her sincerity, because I think most people don’t know what they’re doing sometimes.

There were a lot of opportunistic elements to Alexie’s character, like when she’s getting ready for the TV show. How did you approach that without being too overt about it? How did you keep her lovable, almost until the end?

Alexie Gilmore: I think it was always the way it was written, like, “Oh, you’re not mad at me, right?” She’ll say things and always make sure that she’s lovable in the eyes of whoever she’s in front of, you know? So I think that, for me, it was always making sure that she was still liked no matter what. It comes from that need of like, “I really want this, but I want to make sure that I do it in the best way possible because I want people to like me.” So that was what I always tried to do, just make it as nice as possible, even though I was saying some really shitty things.

How did it feel to be the one who makes Robin Williams laugh?

Alexie Gilmore: Oh my God, it’s so awesome to crack up Robin! The first time I cracked him up, when we were in the dinner scene… I actually ad-libbed that line, “I’m hurting right now,” and he totally cracked the first time I did it. He looked at me and was like, “You’re one of us now.” I was so glad I got validated by Robin Williams! (Laughs.)

What was Bobcat like to work with as a director?

Alexie Gilmore: He is just the sweetest man ever, I think. I didn’t know him at all. I got cast in New York on tape, and from that met everyone for the first time there. I’d only spoken to him on the phone. He’s just so understated, but you know he’s got everything under control. He always just has the best demeanor. I just want to work with him more and more. I hope I get to do other projects with him because I had just a wonderful career experience.

William Bibbiani: Had you seen either of [Bobcat’s] other films (Shakes the Clown, Sleeping Dogs Lie)?

Alexie Gilmore: I hadn’t! I hadn’t seen any of them, so I didn’t know that he was so talented as a director and a writer.

William Bibbiani: Have you seen them since?

Alexie Gilmore: No! I actually haven’t seen them. (Laughs.) Don’t write that! That’s our secret! I have Sleeping Dogs Lie at home, Netflixed. “I have to see this before I see him again!” And I still haven’t gotten to see it because I just got a TV. I just moved. (Laughs.)

Someone adds that Shakes the Clown is a classic.

Alexie Gilmore: I know, I know, and actually when I got cast, my sister and her husband love that movie, and they were, “Oh my God! Shakes the Clown was great!” “Um, yeah! Cool! That’s who I’m working with.” And they were like, “Awesome.” So I hadn’t seen it, but after this thing I have to go see all of them.

William Bibbiani: Not many of Robin Williams’ leading ladies get to have a sex scene with him.

Alexie Gilmore: I know.

William Bibbiani: What was it like to live the dream?

Alexie Gilmore: (Laughs) – It was something else! You know, the funny part is that scene was very rough… It was really supposed to be like, I’m [saying] “Strangle me! Pull my hair!” By the time that we were done, I felt like we’d been through a war. But they were going to have him strangle me, and he gets freaked out the strangling thing but it end up just being like… (Laughs). The sex scene was, we were fully clothed and everything and Bobcat was funny. He’s like, “I don’t think the world’s ready to see Robin Williams have the ‘Sexy Sex Scene.’” He just wanted it to be funny, and that’s what it was about and I was glad to do that.

ROBIN WILLIAMS & BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT:

How did two self-professed comedians like Robin Williams and Bobcat Goldthwait manage to make such a serious film?

Bobcat Goldthwait: You know what it was? It’s not just Robin, but a lot of comedians are in this movie.

Robin Williams: Oh yeah. Pretty much every other person.

Bobcat Goldthwait: And I knew that, like, me saying, “Hey guys, come on. We’ve got to get serious…”

Robin Williams: Yeah, he’s wearing a coonskin hat. “Yeah, thank you Daniel Boone.”

Bobcat Goldthwait: “Dude, you set the Tonight Show on fire. We’re supposed to wise up around you?” But there really would be times when everyone would just go mental for a while, and then, “Now it’s nap time. Let’s film.”

How far back do you two guys go?

Robin Williams: Thirty years. To the dawn of time.

Asking Bobcat about writing a character like Daryl Sabara’s Kyle, was he based on anyone Bobcat really knew?

Bobcat Goldthwait: No. If it was true I would lie right now, but the kid’s not based on a kid I know but about a day in Robin goes, “Oh, I’m playing you.” I’m like, “Yeah…” (Laughs.) But you (indicating William Bibbiani) said it reminded you of your high school. It’s weird, the tragedy that hit the generation above me was that they all had a guy they went to high school with that may have died in Vietnam, or beyond that. But then anyone below that, there’s a really common story [of] some jerk in their school that passes away and everybody reinvents them. I think that it’s a really immature instinct, you know, to make it all about them.

Is it true that it took two women to wax Robin Williams?

Robin Williams: Yes.

And they had to take a break?

Robin Williams: Yes. (At this point, Robin Williams segues into a cacophony of funny voices that are, admittedly very funny… just not so much in print.) They actually did, it was like, literally, they were working, rip rip! And then they were finally like, do you mind if we take a break?” (Laughs.) I felt really bad.

Bobcat Goldthwait: They said they were sure they got carpal tunnel in the middle of it.

Did you have to take painkillers or anything beforehand?

Robin Williams: No, after a while you get used to it.

Bobcat: I did, looking at his hog all day. (Laughs.)

Was that Robin Williams’ first nude scene?

Robin Williams: No, actually it was my second one. My first one was in Fisher King, where I was nude in Central Park, but it was a cold night so that’s my excuse. (Laughs.)

Was it a cold pool in World’s Greatest Dad?

Robin Williams: No, a warm pool!

Bobcat Goldthwait: No, no, trust me, it wasn’t a Dirk Diggler special effect.

Robin Williams: “Is that a boom shadow? Noooooooo!!!”

Bobcat Goldthwait: The whole afternoon we were filming it, I was like, “I have idea why you’re insecure.” (Laughs.)

Robin Williams: But it was weird, because the idea of being nude in that scene I guess was, “Listen, at the end he’s kind of shedding everything.” I went, “Maybe I should go full in.” “Okay.” And that’s kind of how we work. It wasn’t done for like, “This will be a laugh.”

Bobcat Goldthwait: Or a shock.

Robin Williams: It’s more of an emotional thing. It’s cathartic. At that point you’re going full tilt breakdown. What’s going on?

Bobcat Goldthwait: And I also thought that if every single shot in that series was framed in a way in which his garbage was framed out, it would have seemed kind of trite. It would have been saying to the audience, “You’re not grown-ups. You can’t see a penis.”

But you kept your socks on, right?

Robin Williams: Yeah, that’s what most guys would do. (Laughs.) Half the guys [here] are going, “Yeah…” (Editor’s Note: We were.) “I never take my socks off, girl. I never go full socks… If I take my socks off, that means we’re in love.”

Bobcat Goldthwait: The ankles are the gateway to a man’s soul. And that’s another discussion for my costume designer, whom I’m banging – that’s my girlfriend – she said… by the end of the movie Lance has disappeared completely, and we thought that that was just the last little bit of him: his humanity, that’s the little bit of creativity that was left in him. And I also like the idea that when he was going in with those socks, people think he might slip and break his neck or something. So I like to put that out there too.

Does Robin’s constant shifting between comedic and very serious roles created any casting problems in his career?

Robin Williams: In the amount of work I’m getting? That explains why I’m going back out on the road. (Laughs.) I mean, it’s been interesting to do both, and also to do – like I’ve done dark movies like One Hour Photo, but to do a dark comedy like this? We’ll see. We’ll see how it affects work. I mean, I’ve obviously done studio movies, but I did this movie because I read it and I went, “This is really interesting.” I wasn’t doing it as a mercy film for Bob. “Let’s help little Bobby out.” (Laughs.) …This is really good, and I saw his other movies, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, and I went, “He’s fearless.” When you have a movie where a girl basically fellates a dog and goes, “Let’s see what happens.” With this one I’m going, “I know that he can handle something really bizarre upfront and then get down to some kind of really interesting humanity.” And that’s why I did this movie.

Did the Disney-esque sound of the title throw you?

Bobcat Goldthwait: I was just kind of being snarky when I called it “World’s Greatest Dad.” I have a secret: I really do hope some families show up. (Laughs.)

Robin Williams: “Hey Mom, what’s fisting?” “You know, Jimmy, your Uncle Bob used to do that.”

Bobcat Goldthwait: At least they won’t be [shocked after] thirty-five minutes. At least they’ll be [running out] after three minutes…

Robin Williams: I love that the French distributor said, “We’re just going to call it, ‘Dad.’” (Laughs.) That’s a very French thing. “There’s no such thing as ‘World’s Greatest.’ It’s just ‘Dad.’”

Bobcat Goldthwait: My last movie had no problem in France. They were like, “Sure, I believe an American girl blows a dog.”

Robin Williams: “Who doesn’t do this in America? So what? She blows a dog? What goes on then?”

How does Bobcat Goldthwait feel about the similarities between the death of Daryl Sabara’s character and the actual death of actor David Carradine?

Bobcat Goldthwait: Well, his family recently came out and said they thought that it might have been kung fu assassins, and I wish I was joking but they really did.

Robin Williams: They went the opposite way. In this movie…

Bobcat Goldthwait: I want to clear that up. Daryl’s character did not die from kung fu assassins. I would feel bad if it was a punchline, the way the kid died, but it’s not a punchline because I needed a way…

Robin Williams: The motivation for my character, immediately when he finds him that way, is “I don’t want him to be remembered like this.”

Bobcat Goldthwait: And it kind of starts him on his lying trajectory in a weird way, because when he first starts becoming dirty there are actually viable and sincere reasons to lie.

William Bibbiani: I’d like to ask you about that, because that happens… it feels almost halfway through the film. It takes a while to get there, and a lot of films that would be the first-to-second act changeover.

Bobcat Goldthwait: Yeah.

William Bibbiani: What was the idea behind putting it late enough in the film that no one could talk about it? Because we got this press release saying, “Whatever you do, don’t tell in your review that the son dies,” and we haven’t seen it yet.

Bobcat Goldthwait: Oh no!

Robin Williams: Yeah. “Titanic sinks!” “You bastards! You fucking told the ending!” …That was the great thing that a friend of ours who saw the movie last night said, “You made this really unrelenting prick kid, and now how are you going to redeem him? You didn’t. You killed him.” And that’s what Daryl’s, the fearlessness of his performance is, to be that nasty. Because it justifies everything… Well, when you start to deify him and you’re turning him into this amazingly sensitive kid, the audience is going, “No, he wasn’t.” And the one friend who’s going, “He never seemed like that, he never was like that.”

Bobcat Goldthwait: Well, you know in the movie, the scene at the newsstand where Robin falls apart because he sees porn and it reminds him of his son? You know, it’s Chris (Novoselic) from Nirvana, and we’re in Seattle and I used to open for Nirvana, so I called Chris up and I said, “I want you to be in this scene.” He goes, “Why?” And I said, “Because you’re funny.” He’s like, “I am?” …And he gets there and he goes, “What’s going on? What’s this about?” I went, “Sometimes when people die, people reinvent them in a way because they want to make it about themselves, and they lose sight of who this person really was, and that they really were a real person. I don’t know if you can relate to that.” And Chris just smiled, he said, “Oh, okay. I’m in.” (Laughs.)

Anyway, it was really funny when we were filming this scene, Chris was going, “I feel so bad. Robin Williams is so sad. I want to cheer him up.” I’m like, “No, don’t! Don’t! Don’t!”

Robin Williams: It’s kind of wonderful when he’s coming over and comforting me, and I’m standing next to “Ass Lickers.”

How did they feel about the subject matter, in regards to any of the friends in the industry they’ve lost over the years?

Robin Williams: The most wonderful thing that happened was, well it isn’t a wonderful thing. “Oh, greatest death!” Bob’s brother died and the reverend gave this amazing eulogy, where it was, “He loved animals.” And Bob…

Bobcat Goldthwait: Yeah, I went up in the church, and I go, “I don’t want to be rude, but my brother liked to kill animals… There’s a lot of deer out in the woods right now going, ‘Phew!’” (Laughs.)

Robin Williams: But in that moment the entire room was like, “Yeah” The people who knew him go, like, “Yeah man, that’s him.” And then that eulogy, the people get to remember the guy, the real guy. He was crazy.

Bobcat Goldthwait: A little person that I wasn’t aware of was a pallbearer, and I looked down and I said to my daughter, and I go, “It looks like he’s riding a subway.” (Laughs.) It really did. The other guys were lifting him into the air and his feet are dangling…

Robin Williams: At that moment, even God’s going, “Don’t you just love it? Don’t you just get the irony of this whole situation?” (Laughs.)

Bobcat Goldthwait: And that’s the kind of comedy that I’m most comfortable with. That’s the stuff that I’m interested in doing, and I know it seems like it’s for shock. I’m sure that subconsciously that’s what I’m thinking, but I don’t sit down and write these screenplays and go, “Oh, this is going to blow their asses through their face. This will freak everyone out.” Really, I’m writing what interests me, and it’s very freeing…

It’s funny, that scene at the newsstand, because I felt that your character, I was afraid that he was getting over the events too soon. I remember when my own Mom passed away, it was two weeks later when I really broke down. It wasn’t immediately, and so that’s why I put that scene in.

As a father, were the grieving scenes the most difficult to do?

Robin Williams: Yeah, the most difficult scene of all is to think of losing my son. I mean, even thinking of it now, I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine losing my boy, or my daughter. It’s this weird thing, he said, “Can you do this?” “Oh yeah,” it wasn’t hard… it would be, your world falls apart. Everything falls apart. You’re devastated. It doesn’t matter how old you are. I’ve talked to people who are in their eighties and nineties, and their son dies, and they’re going, “I thought I’d always go before him.”

Bobcat Goldthwait: Yeah, that happened to my old man.

Robin Williams: And also, the idea of my initial motivation, the thing where he writes the note or whatever, I don’t want him to be remembered like this. It isn’t like he’s going, “This is a chance to be a great writer.”

Bobcat Goldthwait: No, because that can’t happen to your character at that point.

Robin Williams: And the weird thing when you mention Carradine is his family went the opposite way. “He wasn’t depressed. He was kinky, but he wasn’t depressed.” So they went the other way. This is the honesty of it.

Bobcat Goldthwait: It’s kind of weird culturally that suicide is, “Oh sure, suicide. We all understand that. Masturbating with a belt around your neck? That’s weird.”

Is there such a thing as a selfless lie?

Bobcat Goldthwait: (Thinks) – Yes… If you’re telling a lie, and that lie is out of kindness and it’s not about reinventing yourself and making yourself look better… or where you benefit. You’re just doing it out of kindness, then I do believe that that’s the high road.

Robin Williams: It’s kind of like that movie you had before, Sleeping Dogs Lie, where sometimes the truth is not always the best thing, especially in terms of a relationship… When she tells him, eventually, that, it’s…

Bobcat Goldthwait: A lot of people are bullies when they go, “Hey man, it’s just the truth. I’m just telling you how it is.” Yeah, you’re just being a lout. So I’d written a movie like that, and now I wanted to write one where someone has to grow up and be honest, even though it might mean that they would lose all the shiny things that are popular in American culture.

After a question about how Robin is feeling after his open-heart surgery (quite well, apparently), the conversation turned to second chances:

Bobcat Goldthwait: In regards to second chances… people have probably written myself off, and I think people probably didn’t expect great things from the kid from Spy Kids, and I’m sure we all had our questions about Bruce Hornsby (laughs). To me, in a weird way, that’s another weird and awesome thing that’s come out of this movie.