10 Roles You Didn't Know Robin Williams Almost Played

The late Robin Williams was, as everyone knows, both a revolutionary, incendiary comic actor and a nuanced, thoughtful character actor. Making his name in the seventies and early eighties with madcap sitcom Mork & Mindy, Williams would go on to become one of the most loved stand-up comedians of the eighties and nineties, as well as an endearing €“ and enduring €“ face on the big screen. His breakthrough role in feature film came with Good Morning, Vietnam, a perfect showcase for both sides of his talent. It wasn€™t just his later years or his rehabilitation from drugs and booze that mellowed Williams sufficiently to begin getting meatier dramatic roles €“ he was a feted graduate of the acclaimed and exclusive advanced drama programme at the Juilliard School in New York, in the same year as his lifelong friend Christopher Reeve. A man never shy about admitting when his own failures had cost him dear (he worked it into so many stand-up routines that, over the years, he€™d refined the confessional into another of his manic skits), Williams was famous for losing almost as many high profile roles as he actually gained. Let€™s count down the characters that the Hollywood legend, one of the funniest men of all time, could have played if the stars were right€