Skarsgård also recalled Williams needing to deliver a joke as soon as it came to him: “He had to produce it and get it out of the body. He couldn’t live with it inside.”

Robin Williams ‘had to be funny to survive,’ says his *Good Will Hunting *costar Stellan Skarsgård

Skarsgård also recalled Williams needing to deliver a joke as soon as it came to him: "He had to produce it and get it out of the body. He couldn't live with it inside."

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

EW's editorial guidelines

on February 14, 2026 3:12 p.m. ET

Leave a Comment

Robin Williams and Stellan Skarsgård in 1997's 'Good Will Hunting'. Credit:

Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection

- Stellan Skarsgård remembers his *Good Will Hunting* costar Robin Williams being "calm," "nice," and "lovely."

- However, he says Williams would often shift into another gear "when a couple more people came to him," adding, "He had to be funny to survive."

- Skarsgård also recalls Williams needing to deliver a joke as soon as it came to him: "He had to produce it and get it out of the body. He couldn't live with it inside."

Stellan Skarsgård is reflecting on his time with Robin Williams on the set of *Good Will Hunting*.

The Oscar-nominated *Sentimental Value* actor shared his memories of working with Williams at a Q&A following a screening of the 1997 drama in Los Angeles on Friday night.

"As a person, when you were alone with him, he was calm and he was nice, and he was lovely, and he could talk about anything," Skarsgård said of his late costar.

However, he added, Williams seemed to shift into a different gear when multiple people showed up. "But then when a couple more people came to him, he suddenly would *get up* — to save himself, in a way," Skarsgård recalled. "And I think it's a thing he had from school. He had to be funny to survive."

Robin Williams in 'Good Will Hunting'.

Miramax/courtesy Everett Collection

Gus Van Sant, who directed *Good Will Hunting* and moderated the screening event, remembered how Williams asked to perform more takes for nearly every scene. "Robin was the one that was like, 'One more, one more, one more,'" the filmmaker said. "So we did 10 [takes] sometimes as opposed to maybe three, because he wanted to do a fast one, a slow one, a happy one, a sad one, a funny one, a not-funny one."

Skarsgård added that he appreciated the breadth and thoroughness of Williams' work on the Oscar-winning movie. "It was fantastic because, as you said, he wanted to do new takes," the *Dune* star. "And he also had a thing that was kind of a necessity for him because… he'd get an idea about a joke, for instance, and he had to produce it and get it out of the body. He couldn't live with it inside. And I felt all the time that he had three parallel brains working, and very fast!"

Why Gwyneth Paltrow didn't get to know 'Hook' costar Robin Williams until Ben Affleck reconnected them

Sarah Michelle Gellar stepped away from acting because of Robin Williams' death: 'That loss was so huge'

The *Breaking the Waves* actor said Williams' robust performance style challenged him and the rest of his costars. "The good thing was that he did different takes and they were really different," he explained. "Some were very dark, and some were very funny. And all the other actors, we were hanging in there. We were playing different kinds of scenes with him."

Skarsgård also marveled at Van Sant and the *Good Will Hunting* editors' ability to incorporate Williams' footage into the film and achieve the appropriate tonal balance. "The material you got [from Robin] is very interesting, because you could have cut that role into becoming a very farcical role, or you could have cut it into becoming really depressive," he said to Van Sant at the screening. "And you found your way."

Stellan Skarsgård in Santa Barbara on Feb. 11, 2026.

Phillip Faraone/Getty

In the film, Skarsgård portrays Gerald Lambeau, the MIT professor who shepherds the brilliant Will Hunting (Matt Damon) as he explores complex mathematics. Gerald enlists his former college roommate, Sean Maguire (Williams), to serve as Will's therapist, and the two friends butt heads about how to best mentor the young genius.

Despite his character's academic accomplishments, Skarsgård revealed that he had never dealt with advanced math, and that he "didn't try to" comprehend the more complicated subjects with which Gerald grappled. "I did not understand it," he said. "It was far above my math knowledge."

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.***

The movie employed real-life mathematician John Mighton to coach Skarsgård through the jargon, and Mighton ended up playing Gerald's assistant, Tom. "We had a very good math professor that taught us and that helped us," the actor said of Mighton.

"You wanted to have him around all the time, so he was usually busy," Van Sant added.

"Yeah, he sort of prompted me," Skarsgård said. "If you were explaining something, the only thing you have to know is that it's expressed the right way… You don't have to really understand it."**

- Celebrities & Creators

- Entertainment Industry Roles

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Actors”