An actor from the beloved film Mrs. Doubtfire has expressed hope that Robin Williams’ legendary voice might be preserved for future audiences to cherish.
The 1990s classic owes much of its enduring appeal to the late Robin Williams, who brought the character of Mrs. Doubtfire to life with his unmatched talent.
Sadly, Williams passed away in 2014 at the age of 63. The cause was suicide, following a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.
Williams was celebrated for his voice acting skills, famously portraying roles such as the divorced man turned elderly nanny in Mrs. Doubtfire, the Genie in Disney’s Aladdin, and characters in animated films like Happy Feet and Robots.
Matthew Lawrence, who played Williams’ onscreen son Chris Hillard in Mrs. Doubtfire, hopes that new generations will have the chance to hear Williams’ distinctive voice again.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lawrence, now 45, expressed his wish: “Obviously, with the respect and with the okay from his family, I would love to do something really special with his voice, because I know for a generation, that voice is just so iconic.”
He added, “It’s not just the fact that I knew him and worked with him and so it’s in my head — it’s in everybody’s head. And it would be so cool,” during EW’s Comic-Con event.
Lawrence proposed that Williams’ voice could become the next ‘voice’ of artificial intelligence. This idea came to him after watching one of Williams’ old commercials.
He described the commercial as “a very contemporary, modern, almost sort of foreshadowing of what’s going on commercial that he did, where he did this computerized voiceover.”
“And it always stuck with me. And then, during his passing, with the AI coming out, I’m like, ‘Man, he’s gotta be the voice of A.I. He’s gotta be the voice in something.’ So yeah, I would love to do that.”
Lawrence sees endless possibilities for programming with Williams’ voice, including using it for GPS navigation.
“It would be Robin!” he remarked. “It would be so cool. I’m telling you.”
This idea surfaces as discussions of a Mrs. Doubtfire sequel were halted due to Williams’ passing, which put an end to any continuation of the beloved 1993 film.
Director Chris Columbus informed Business Insider in 2023 that the film could not proceed without Williams.
He mentioned that there had been conversations about a sequel in 2014, and a script was even developed.
“We had a script that was written, and it was the last time I saw Robin,” Columbus recalled. “I went to his house, and we sat down and talked about it. The script was really strong. Robin’s only comment was, ‘Boss, do I have to be in the suit as much this time?’ It was physically demanding.”
“For Robin, I think it was like running a marathon every day he was in the Doubtfire costume. He was older, obviously. So we talked about it, and I think he was hoping in the rewrite we would cut back on the Doubtfire character. But then Robin passed away, so there will never be a sequel to Mrs. Doubtfire,” he concluded.