Sally Field Reveals Why Robin Williams Wasn't Cracking Jokes on the Mrs. Doubtfire Set

If you’ve ever watched Mrs. Doubtfire (and honestly, who hasn’t stumbled across it on cable at least ten times), you know Robin Williams basically built that movie with 100% energy, chaos, and ad-libbed gags. It’s the role most people still bring up when talking about Williams’ high-wire comedic genius, even thirty years later. But here’s a weird tidbit I did not see coming: his legendary ability to crack up a set? Totally ineffective on one of his biggest co-stars.

Let’s Back Up: The Movie That Gave Us Cake Face and Accents Galore

Released in 1993, Mrs. Doubtfire became a family classic, raking in over $440 million worldwide. The formula: Robin Williams goes full method as Daniel Hillard, a divorced dad and washed-up voice actor who will do literally anything (including donning prosthetics and a wild Scottish accent) just to hang out with his own kids after losing custody. The cast list was stacked — Sally Field as the exasperated ex-wife Miranda, with Pierce Brosnan, Matthew Lawrence, Mara Wilson, Lisa Jakub, and Harvey Fierstein rounding out the family chaos. It’s Chris Columbus at the helm, so it’s got that big-hearted, slightly-schmaltzy ’90s blockbuster energy.

Williams is infamous for never sticking to the script — this is the guy who reportedly invented most of Genie’s lines in Aladdin. While filming Mrs. Doubtfire, those improvisational fireworks were firing on all cylinders. But there’s one person who never bought a ticket to the Robin Williams Comedy Train: Sally Field.

Sally Field Couldn’t Be Cracked

Ask anyone who worked with Williams, and the stories are always about how he’d make cast and crew double over laughing. Except, apparently, for Sally Field. She dropped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and dropped this total curveball: Robin could never make her laugh on set. Not once. Not ever. Field says, ‘Everyone else was laughing and carrying on’ at his bits, but for her, he was just ‘not funny.’

In her words:

'Robin was always trying something different to make me laugh. It was so unfunny. I can’t begin to tell you. And then Pierce, wonderful Pierce Brosnan, we were sitting at a table at the restaurant, and he made a fart noise on his arm. And I was gone. That was it.'

Let’s put it this way — Williams threw everything at her, and nothing stuck. He’d apparently get a little obsessed with cracking her, and she says it 'drove him mad, actually.' The punchline? It wasn’t Robin, but Pierce Brosnan (yes, suave, future-James-Bond Pierce Brosnan) who finally broke her with the unimpeachable comic force of… a fart noise. Sometimes the classics just work.

Williams Offscreen: Not Just Gags and Voices

If this whole story makes it seem like Field didn’t appreciate Williams, that’s not the case. She was quick to mention how much heart he brought to the set, and on a personal note, shared that he supported her through the loss of her own father during production. So, while his on-set comedy fell flat for her, his kindness certainly did not.

The Enduring Legacy (And the Funniest Arm in Hollywood)

It’s been over a decade since Robin Williams’s death in 2014, but every oddball story like this just adds another quirky brushstroke to his legacy. Whether you think of him as Mrs. Doubtfire, the Genie, or just that guy who never stopped improvising, his spirit is still all over pop culture — even showing up (intentionally or not) in things like the new Jumanji movies. Oh, and if you ever need proof that humor is subjective, remember: one of the sharpest comic geniuses alive couldn’t make Sally Field laugh, but a fake fart from 007 did the trick.

• Williams’ legendary improvising? Couldn’t get a chuckle from Sally Field.
• Pierce Brosnan’s arm fart: officially funnier than Robin Williams (to Field, anyway).
• Field respected Williams’s warmth and support off-camera, even if the jokes missed.
• Classic Mrs. Doubtfire: still a comedy staple, still spawning wild behind-the-scenes tidbits years later.