Few actors are as widely admired as the great Marlon Brando, whether it be for his truly unique method acting style as honed under the tutorship of Stella Adler, his humanitarian and political activism, or just his “bad boy actor” persona. Brando was simply one of a kind in all facets of his life.
The admiration for Brando did not just come from the public audience, but his fellow actors too, and very few would struggle to deny Brando’s excellence. Robin Williams, meanwhile, had actually been fortunate enough to meet Brando and relayed his experience of that time in an interview with Charlie Rose.
“Brando, I got to meet him, and that was pretty great,” the late Williams said. “He was teaching this acting class in LA, and I got to kind of sit in on it.” Williams then performed (as we ought to expect) a perfect impression of Brando: “He said, ‘You know if I ever did a movie with you, it would be really hard because I’d be laughing all the time.’”
Williams then went on to tell an amusing anecdote from within the acting class. “When at one point he was teaching the acting class, and he had this big dog of his,” he said. “All of a sudden, the dog is licking his ass, and he said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to do that in a movie? How behavioural is that? It’s just so natural. Just an idea to just let it hang.’”
It’s indicative of Brando’s commitment to his craft that he was always thinking about acting, even when his dog became the star. “It was insane; it was wonderful to see this man, just going on, there he was,” Williams added. “He’s an amazing guy; all these guys have so much to tell and teach. Brando actually put together an acting class. I was kind of giving back. He was sharing what he knows.”
Williams’ experienced great fortune in getting so close to one of the greatest actors of all time, and it left him with something of a spiritual awakening. He continued: “Sometimes he’d ramble on, but he’d sometimes say something, and you’d just go ‘Woah’ in kind of a Buddhist moment.”
He also noted how Brando impacted those attending the acting class: “Because he’ll tell you stuff, and [he] wants to tell you stuff,” he said. “It’s important because it’s the verbal and visual record because people just light up. They see him talk about it, and they just remember it. And it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, baby!’ It’s the audience combined with remembering it; it’s a wonderful thing.”
