Robin Williams: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

2. Daniel Hillard - Mrs Doubtfire (1993)

Inevitably, Williams' straight work is only one side of a career that was as varied and as rich as Philip Seymour Hoffman's, even if the troughs were rather imbalanced against the brilliant highs. And his reputation as a solid, entertaining comic actor were fundamentally perpetuated by performances like this (and like the Birdcage), which showed not only his ability to be rib-achingly funny, but also his more human side. It's rare to see a character in the better films on Williams' CV who doesn't boast some multi-faceted contradiction: Good Morning Vietnam was about a controversial figure battling institutionalised stuffiness (as well as the horrors of war), the Genie was brilliantly funny and tragically doomed, and even World's Greatest Dad was all about the conflict of reality and fantasy. In Mrs Doubtfire Williams took that split personality to the extreme, playing two equally brilliant characters in one, showing an aching vulnerability as Daniel and an almost pantomime silliness as Mrs Doubtfire, though both are balanced (one by self-preserving humour, and the other by heart-warming loveliness). And crucially, though it's all very theatrical, Williams showed great respect for the material, never straying into the grotesque, which made the film so utterly unforgettable.