So, taking the hot seat for Man of the Year interviews, Williams may have looked like a serious political candidate here to talk about the issues. But, it wasn’t long before he was impersonating co-star Christopher Walken and speaking Spanish phrases I didn’t even understand well enough to transcribe.
In the film, Williams plays Tom Dobbs, the host of a political comedy/interview show. He attempts to run for president as a serious candidate, but soon realizes that the way to make an impression is to be his outrageous self, taking over debates and wearing a Thomas Jefferson wig. Much to everyone’s surprise, Dobb’s actually wins the race, becoming the next President-elect. However, a computer programmer (Laura Linney) discovers that Dobb’s win was only a glitch that miscalculated the votes, so she sets out to tell Dobbs the truth about his campaign.
To audiences, this might seem like a no-brainer. After all, wouldn’t anyone with intelligent ideas and the nerve to express them do more good than a double-talking politician, no matter what means got him there? But Williams agrees with filmmaker Barry Levinson’s statement that if you abandon honesty, your administration won’t have integrity anyway.
“It’s essentially a moral dilemma too if you start out on a dishonest foot,” said Williams. Then, suddenly imitating the star, “Even though you may, like Chris[topher Walken]’s character [says], ‘You can do good!’ And if you walk outside there are like 400 Walken impersonators. This is the only town where cab drivers will talk like, ‘It’s weird... Go to the airport… Why?’”
Perhaps the Walken impression does not translate well in print. But, back to the point about an honest president, “The idea is that it would be totally dishonest. I think you are on the high ground if you say ‘no’. I wish that would happen in real life. What happened in Ohio? The program seems flawed.”
Perhaps it’s Dobbs’, and Williams’, lot in life to be the commentator, not the administrator, “Like my character, I believe I serve a better purpose just being able to make fun of everything. In many comics, the moment you choose a side, this is not about one party or another. It’s about how the whole system sucks. Right now, you have special interests running a lot of politics because it costs $200 million to run for most offices. For President definitely that much and even for Governor it gets in the hundreds of millions just to run the ads. The ads are usually like, ‘He slept with a chicken.’ ‘Did the chicken die?’ ‘It’s not that bad.’”
Why would anyone want Robin Williams to have to choose between chicken jokes and national policy? As he said, even just being on the press tour for a movie, he can put the right ideas in the air and hopefully people will pick up on the problems that need solutions.
“I just wanted to talk about the whole system. How is it working? Is everyone happy with the way things are? If you’re a Democrat, you’re going [sarcastically], ‘Gosh, we’re doing well.’ If you’re a republican you’re going, ‘F*ck ‘em.’ But I think it’s the idea that what’s working well right now? Are we as a country doing very well? Are we actually functioning to the best of our abilities? How do we do? If you look at most countries, how do we stand in the world? How do we stand nationally? How come we have not rebuilt New Orleans? How do you do that? How do you function through that and how do you deal with all the different things? And both sides, not the idea of divisive politics but the idea of united, as in U.S. being ‘us’ and the idea of working together and disagreeing and being able to work it out.”
Williams is hardly the only voice of reason in the entertainment world. “As a comic, as you see with all these guys like Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, [Stephen] Colbert, all they’re doing is basically just saying, ‘Here’s the absurdity.’ And people laugh and yet it still goes on. You can look at any given day and go, ‘That’s insane.’”
So that brings us back to the original question: shouldn’t someone who sees the problems take the reigns away from the ones who are afraid to initiate any real change? It seems even the politicians are more effective once they leave office. Again, says Williams, it is the system that breeds this ineffectiveness.
“Even [Al] Gore describes himself as a former [candidate]. It’s almost like he’s been to P.A., Politics Anonymous. He says, ‘I’m a former candidate,’ like now he’s freed up to be more himself and can talk about issues he’s adamant about versus when he was running. He couldn’t talk, people might be offended by that. That might lose some votes and you’re going, ‘You might lose some votes but you may save humanity, but it’s up to you. Your call.’ I like breathing. I really like breathing and I don’t like fecal matter in my water. It’s just crazy. I don’t like bathing in my own sh*t.”
Perhaps Man of the Year can convince people that even if a Tom Dobbs isn’t the answer, reform of the system is in order. Dobbs and Williams can be the vehicle for discussion, and what a vehicle he is. Ranting about alternative fuels, the politics of distraction and more, Williams had a chance to go off script.
“We would try different things here. We tried some stuff, just pieces. [Levinson] would say, ‘Try working up some things that are general enough that they won’t lock it off into a time or specific issue.’ Like it’d be great to talk about the Middle East in there but you want to have a campaign that’s talking about things that have been around and will be around. We had issues like alternative fuels and the idea of what is that about. The issue of flag burning which is always brought up. It seems to come up at a time when [like] ‘We’re about do a complete audit- - FLAG BURNING. BURN THE FLAG.’ Like I said [in the film], I was driving the other day, I didn’t see one on fire. And it is offensive. if you’re a vet, it’s offensive. It’s also, I think, if you’re a vet, it’s also offensive to know that there are flag thongs. ‘Where’s grandma’s stripes? I don’t know.’ Those are the things that they will put and get you really worked up about and you guys help. There’ll be stories.”
Just like in real life, the film allows Williams to go wild comedically, put on voices and scream at loud decibels, then bring things back down to really dramatic issues. “As it did in Good Morning Vietnam. It was the same kind of mix which is why it’s great to work with Barry. He has the ability to mix them beautifully, and also the ability to say, ‘You don’t have to do anything here. There’s enough absurdity just to have on a Thomas Jefferson wig and be speaking to congress and go ‘I hope this works’ and be in the limousine dressed like that.’ There’s not a lot of spin you have to work on. The idea of talking about the subjects and that ability is funny because we can try and just go as far as you can and mix and match. He was the first guy who could actually do both of them with [me in] Good Morning Vietnam and the chance to do it again, especially now in these interesting times, to be able to have both, that to me was the gift and that’s why I wanted to do it. And I’m glad we did because it’s just to address it all. It’s almost a documentary. Everyone’s going, ‘Oh, it happened yesterday, I’m sorry.’”
Real life also informed the degree of Dobbs’ comedic campaign. He could never be too wild, because history has shown that people don’t vote for excited personalities. “Even when the scenes of when I’m on the campaign trail, it’s basically the idea of not getting too amped up because as we know, if you get too excited on the campaign trail, and if you jump up and down, people get worried. As we know from certain people. WE’RE GONNA WIN THIS THING! ‘He scares me.’”
Still, actor Robin Williams won’t hit the campaign trail to save us from our political woes. He may be right. Actors haven’t always made the best politicians. “Look what we’ve elected. In Minnesota, you had Jesse Ventura, two terms. And he was elected just on the sheer fact, he yelled at them, ‘Screw all this new policy.’ I ask the people, did he ever pass anything interesting? No. Arnold is actually trying to make changes and yet still keep his base and yet still realize it’s basically a democratic state but also a state where if you talk about environmental issues, it means something because we’ve actually experienced horrible air and bad water and fighting for resources and all that stuff. I think people are just up for a change and really dealing with how can you make your quality of life better on all fronts and literally make change that may not be popular, which is a hardcore thing.”
"Man of the Year" opened Friday, October 13.
