How Robin Williams Helped Steven Spielberg Make It Through ‘Schindler’s List’

Last night, in honor of Schindler’s List‘s 25th anniversary, Steven Spielberg gathered with the cast to screen the Holocaust epic (his first time watching the film with an audience since 1993!) and discuss its legacy, the production process, and looking back on it a quarter of a century later. While many folks love to rave about the fact that Spielberg pulled double duty by shooting Schindler’s List and cutting Jurassic Park at the same time, approving T-rex shots actually only made the experience more difficult. His remedy? Weekly phone calls from a close friend: the late, great Robin Williams.

“Robin knew what I was going through,” the director recalled. Williams would call him every week, at the same time. “He would do 15 minutes of stand-up on the phone. I would laugh hysterically, because I had to release so much. The way Robin is on the telephone, he’d always hang up on you on the loudest, best laugh you’d give him. Drops the mic, that’s it.”

The way Spielberg tells it, he might have fallen apart if it weren’t for the comic relief from his friend. The devastating film was just as devastating to shoot, especially on location in Poland, where the anti-Semitism was still rampant. “There was trauma everywhere,” Spielberg said. “And we captured the trauma. You can’t fake that.”

Spielberg and cast members Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall, and Embeth Davidtz also recalled the intense atmosphere. Swastikas turned up painted on buildings near the set, and one elderly Polish woman pulled aside Ralph Fiennes, dressed in his character’s Nazi uniform, to tell him that she wished “all of you were back here protecting us again.”

Despite all this pain and the grueling shoot, Schindler’s List remains the work he’s most proud of. “I have never felt since Schindler’s List the kind of pride and satisfaction and sense of real, meaningful accomplishment — I haven’t felt that in any film post-Schindler’s List.”