Robin Williams Put Everyone at Ease With One Simple Nickname

Robin Williams just had a way of making people comfortable. He had a lot of tools in his belt for that particular task, but one of his methods was pretty simple. “He called everybody Boss,” remembered his Night at the Museum costar Ben Stiller in a Vanity Fair collection of Williams memories. “‘Yes, Boss. You want me here, Boss?’ Robin would go above and beyond to make people happy.”

“He always called me Boss, which made me feel good because I was younger than him,” said Chris Columbus, Williams’ Mrs. Doubtfire director.

Calling people Boss was Williams’ “way of being respectful,” added Sarah Michelle Gellar, who starred with Williams on the show The Crazy Ones. “He was so generous. We used to joke that his assistant would never give him cash because he just gave it away.”

The Vanity Fair retrospective is packed with celebs praising all the ways in which Williams put others at ease. Stiller remembered meeting the comic at the Improv long before they ever worked together. “I was with my parents … a kid in this grown-up place, at the height of Mork & Mindy,” Stiller said. “He whispered in my ear, ‘Stay close to your mother. You’ll be safe.’ I was, of course, freaking out. Working with him years later was a childhood dream come true.”

Gale Hansen was one of the students in Dead Poet’s Society. After Hansen met Williams at the first script read through, “he whispered in my ear, ‘We have a lot in common.’” Hansen was befuddled — how could a nobody like him have something in common with Robin Williams? “He says, ‘You studied with Sandy Meisner. I studied with John Houseman at Juilliard.’ It dawned on me: He was opening himself up in a unique place for every kid. We were intimidated; he took the anxiety out of the relationship.”

“He took great care in being a part of the ensemble, even if that ensemble was mostly inexperienced 17-year-olds,” added Josh Charles, another of Williams’ Dead Poet students. “I appreciated him taking that approach.”

It was the same approach Williams took with his more experienced costars — “Robin had the day off, but came to the set because he wanted to be there for me,” Nathan Lane remembered of filming a big solo musical number for The Birdcage — as well as with the coworkers who weren’t famous at all. “He had a joke about every member of the crew,” explained Terry Gilliam, director of The Fisher King. “He knew their names, what was particular about them.”

“By the end of the first week, he had learned everybody’s name — from the caterers to the production assistants,” said Columbus about filming Mrs. Doubtfire. “And if anyone had a quirk, he would remember and make a joke. It made everyone feel like he was their friend and put everyone in a fantastic mood.”

“He never felt like his job was done,” Gellar concluded, “until he made everyone feel comfortable and happy.”