Sally Field remembers 'Mrs. Doubtfire' costar Robin Williams as she accepts SAG lifetime achievement award: 'He should be growing old like me'

Sally Field and Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire
Sally Field and Robin Williams in "Mrs. Doubtfire"Frederic J. Brown / AFP / Twentieth Century Fox
  • Sally Field spoke to reporters about her "Mrs. Doubtfire" ahead of its 30th anniversary.

  • While at the SAG Awards, Fields said she misses her costar, Robin Williams.

  • Field added that her memories of the film are filled with "love and joy of being in his presence."

Sally Field recalled working with Robin Williams on the 1993 comedy "Mrs. Doubtfire" as the 30th anniversary of the movie approaches later this year.

On Sunday, Field attended the Screen Actors Guild Awards to receive the organization's lifetime achievement award. While on the red carpet, the actor was asked by Entertainment Weekly and People about working on "Mrs. Doubtfire" with famous comedian Williams, who died by suicide in 2014 at the age of 63.

In the movie, Williams played a divorcé who tries to spend time with his children by pretending to be a housekeeper for his ex-wife (Field).

"What you think about immediately is Robin," Field said when asked what she remembers about working on the film. "There isn't a moment of it that's not filled with my love and joy of being in his presence. Robin was Robin. He was everything he seemed to be."

The 76-year-old actor continued: "A generous, loving, sweet, geniusly-talented man. We all miss him. He should be growing old like me for God's sake. I hate it that he isn't here."

In 2021, "Mrs. Doubtfire" director Chris Columbus told SF Gate that he had discussed a sequel to the hit movie just before Williams' passing.

robin williams
Robin Williams.Vera Anderson/WireImage/Getty Images

"Robin was one-of-a-kind," the director said. "The last time I met with Robin before he passed away was about the 'Mrs. Doubtfire' sequel. We had a script and it was a great script. Robin was prepared to do it. And then, unfortunately, he passed away."

The sequel was immediately scrapped after Williams died with Columbus saying it was "impossible" to continue without the legendary actor.

Two years prior to Williams' death, he was misdiagnosed with Parkinson's disease. An autopsy following his death found that the actor actually had Lewy body dementia, a form of progressive dementia.

In 2021, Robin's son Zak Williams said on "The Genius Life" podcast that his father was left feeling "frustrated" by the diagnosis.

"What he was going through didn't match one to one [with] many Parkinson's patients experiences. So, I think that was hard for him," Zak said. "There was a focus issue that frustrated him, there were issues associated with how he felt, and also from a neurological perspective, he didn't feel great. He was very uncomfortable."

Zak thought that his father's misdiagnosis "might have exacerbated the situation," adding that the drugs used to treat Parkinson's "are no joke." 

"They're also really hard on the mind and the body," he said. "The diagnosis was different than the disease so I think it could be a situation where you're taking stuff and experiencing purely the side effects of [the drug]."

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