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Though a terrifically engaging screen presence at his most gregarious — Robin Williams

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"Though a terrifically engaging screen presence at his most gregarious and joke-focused, he had to chops to be just as mesmerizing when muted, which would only draw out tension for the moment when he could turn on the jets and shift to full bombast. I’m not sure I can think of another actor with Williams’ combined dominant traits: instantly recognizable for his warmth and energy, fiercely multitalented, flying between understated and exuberant emotional extremes in comedy and drama, and yet maligned whenever the unpredictable balance he struck in a given performance didn’t match the critical ideal. In that way his Academy Award for Good Will Hunting in 1997 is both the peak of his control and the most patronizing harness of his career. Here is your reward for taking the raging combustion, powerful as a radiant star, and tamping it down to understated levels while remaining perforated, so that emotional peaks still have a chance to flare out. It was an unhelpful and unjust expectation on an actor who did nothing but give of himself to his performance. … it’s too limiting right now to call Robin Williams simply a comedian, despite the tremendous outpouring from the comedy community that continues today. He was an actor, one of the most gifted and adventurous performers of his generation, and it’s a shame that it took something like his tragic death to take stock of the possibility that the outsized expectations of an audience could have prevented more people from simply enjoying the effort Williams made in so many films, no matter the critical adjudication."
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Robin Williams
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Robin Williams
Robin Williams
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Robin McLaurin Williams was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created spontaneously and portrayed in drama and comedy films, he is regarded as one of the greatest comedians of all time. Williams received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and six Golden Globe Awards, as well as five Gram

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"I would like to do Shakespeares only unknown piece, Thats the Way I Lick It ... Its a bleak night my Lord. Look! The moon like a testicle hangs low in the sky. This bodes not well. ... Anon, post-haste, lets get a larger crowd in here. Free Cocaine! Theres no luck. Does anyone have drugs to ease my pain? My Kingdom for a Quaalude! … It is the end! I must go, for I cannot come here, and yet, it has been brief, tis over, and the lights do turn bright. Im melting! Help me! Help me!"
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Robin Williams
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"They call it freebasing. Its not free, it costs you your house! It should be called home basing! Three signs youre addicted to cocaine: First of all, if you come home to your house and you have no furniture and your cats going "Im outta here, prick!," Warning! Number two: If you have this dream where youre doing cocaine in your sleep and you cant fall asleep, and you wake up and youre doing cocaine, BINGO! Number three: if on your tax form it says, "$50,000 for snacks," MAYDAY!"
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Robin Williams
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"[About pre-9/11 and post-9/11 airport security] Airport security, remember before all this happened, was like, BEEP, Okay, get on the plane. Come on, get on the plane. Hold on one moment. Whats that? Oh, thats a gun. Okay, get on the plane! You could carry a four-inch blade on a plane. Thats about that long. What are you doing, West Side Story in the aisle? "Going down the aisle! Crazy aisle!" Now, you cant even carry a nail-clipper on a plane. Are they afraid youre gonna go "ALL RIGHT! Gimme the plane or the bitch loses a cuticle! I have a nail file! I can be irritating!"
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Robin Williams