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罗宾·威廉姆斯的离世突然而毫无预兆。或者说，在世人眼中，他不应该以这种方式突然离开人们的视线。我们只记得他欢乐的模样，哪怕在严肃的剧情片或是晦暗不明的惊悚片，我们也期待他有那么一两句幽默台词能引得观众捧腹大笑。所以我们不断发问：他看上去那么乐观开朗、没心没肺，怎会以自杀的方式了却自己的一生呢？殊不知镁光灯之外的他，终生与酒精、毒品以及抑郁症纠缠，台上的欢笑不过是他的职业需求，嘴角牵扯的笑容根本没有到达眼底和内心，一切不过是一场梦幻一场戏罢了。
如果说流多少眼泪，有多少欢笑，吃多少穿多少这些是恒定的，那么在台上威廉姆斯把自己所有的光与热都耗光后，留给自己的生活就是生命的晦涩与无奈。那些被酒精和毒品摧毁的欢乐，那些被抑郁症夺走的平静，都是他要成名的代价。他在进行一项交易，把那些看似简单的美好拿去交换，得到的一开始是甜蜜，后来却是越发难忍的苦涩。我们只看到了阳光底下的光，却不知道背后的影子黑暗无底，能生生地把一个人的生活给吞没。
——Mac
It’s hard to choose a single moment that represents the career of Robin Williams， who was found dead this morning of an apparent suicide at 63. Somehow they all seem representative. There were flashes of anarchic joy in his grimmest roles， and moments even in his most 1）outwardly 2）featherweight performances when it seemed as though a cloud had passed across his face.
Williams battled drug problems and depression throughout his life. Although he had 3）crests and troughs， the light never traveled far from the darkness or the darkness from the light. Like 4）Jack Lemmon， you could believe Williams as a man standing on a ledge or walking on air. That was the most surprising and often haunting thing about Williams： that sense that when he unleashed the full force of his talent， he was reaching out to the audience and running away from something.
“When he appeared on the Jonathan Ross show earlier this summer， he’d been vintage Williams， hyperactive to the point of deranged， 5）ricocheting between voices， riffing off his internal dialogues，”wrote The Guardian’s Decca Aitkenhead in a 2010 profile 6）pegged to World’s Greatest Dad， a 7）pitchblack comedy with unbearably painful dramatic passages， many of which revolve around a suicide note. “Off-camera， however， he is 8）a different kettle of fish. His bearing is intensely 9）Zen and almost mournful， and when he’s not putting on voices he speaks in a low， tremulous 10）baritone—as if on the verge of tears—that would work very well if he were delivering a funeral 11）eulogy.”
His first 12）indelible character， Mork from Ork， was a one-off supporting character on Happy Days， an extraterrestrial who battled the show’s king of cool， the leather jacketed Fonzie. “He could make everybody happy but himself，” said Garry Marshall， who cast Williams in the star-making role as Mork. Producer Marshall was so impressed with Williams’ hair-trigger imagination that he built a 13）spinoff around him， Mork and Mindy. The show was even more of a situation comedy than most sitcoms， mainly because of who its star was. A man with Williams’s 14）freewheeling brain might’ve had trouble staying on script anyhow—he modeled his standup style on his mentor and friend Jonathan Winters—but at the time he was also feeding a 15）prodigious cocaine habit， one he’d joke about and ruminate on as he got older（“Cocaine is god’s way of telling you you are making too much money，” he said in Robin Williams Live at the Met）. He also drank too much， but got 16）sober in 1983 and stayed sober for 20 years， until he cracked while filming Insomnia （great performance as a possible psychotic killer） on location in Alaska. There were 17）relapses and treatments and apologies； anybody who’s dealt with these oftenintertwined problems， substance addiction and depression， knows you don’t so much beat them as beat them back. Or 18）harness them.
Like many other great stand ups who were also fine dramatic actors， Williams dove into darkness in many of his best roles. He never seemed to be having to imagine his way into the 19）mindset of people who had 20）numbed themselves with chaos （like his character in The Fisher King， who lost his wife in a random shooting and became convinced he was a knight on a holy quest） or routine （like the 21）meek doctor in Awakenings， or the title character in The World According to Garp， whose opening credits song， “When I’m 64”， will pierce more deeply now）.
Despite Garp， a lovely adaptation of a book some thought unadaptable， it took a while for him to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor， and an equally long time for one of his films to hit big. He crossed both achievements off his list after 1987’s Good Morning Vietnam. The film was the perfect merger of formulaic Hollywood comedy-drama beats and Williams’by-then-22）patented brand of 23）riffing.
Vietnam was so successful that Williams strove to recapture it throughout the next decade， in a series of comedies that cast him as a grinning id figure sent to liberate the world from its psychic shackles. The best of these were Dead Poets Society， which transplanted his standupstyle riffing to the English classroom in a 1950s prep school filled with repressed young men who had to be instructed to seize the day； and Disney’s cartoon feature Aladdin， which arguably put Williams， 24）at long last， in the role he was born to play： a purple genie that re-formed itself to incarnate any person， creature or concept Williams’ 25）motor-mouth could 26）invoke. For a long stretch， Williams alternated 27）Holy Fool roles with comic liberator parts （combining the two in his ’90s 28）nadir， Patch Adams， about a doctor who believed laughter was not just the best medicine， but a substitute for actual medicine）. Occasionally he’d 29）toss in a heavymakeup 30）tour-de-force like Mrs. Doubtfire， but for a while there was a growing sense that Williams’ instincts had become too calculated and the material too transparent.
His secret career salvation came in in 1990’s Awakenings， in which he played a soft-spoken， emotionally recessive psychologist opposite a much showier Robert DeNiro as a 31）comatose patient made 32）lucid by medicine. Williams had been a comic leading man with a dramatic streak for over a decade at that point， but one could glimpse a possible third act in his career， as a character actor.
He became a very good one soon afterward， proving himself in roles that seemed ill-suited to the alien in the bright shiny jumpsuit on Mork& Mindy who， upon learning that eggs were 33）unhatched baby birds， tossed one in the air， exclaiming， “Fly！ Be free！”
He won his only Oscar as a supporting player， in 1997’s Good Will Hunting， playing a community college professor 34）moonlighting as a therapist 35）at the request of an old college roommate.
A lot of people mock Hunting as a Hollywood 36）bastardization of therapy， in which a troubled character （Matt Damon’s janitor/math genius/ orphan） finally starts to overcome 37）crippling self-doubt and class resentment. There’s some truth to the criticism， and yet the film still works—not just because of Damon and Ben Affleck’s ambitiously multilayered script and Gus van Sant’s precise direction， but because the central relationship between the hero and Williams’s Sean Maguire， who understands Will’s pain because he lost his wife to cancer， feels raw and true.
“You don’t know about real loss， ’cause that only occurs when you’ve loved something more than you love yourself，” he tells Will—one of the film’s many devastating moments.
“The tears of the world are a 38）constant quantity，” wrote Samuel Beckett in Waiting for Godot， which Williams starred in during a 1988 Lincoln Center production. “For each one who begins to weep， somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.”
要以某个单一时刻来诠释罗宾·威廉姆斯的职业生涯并不容易。今早他被发现自杀身亡，享年63岁。他生涯中的每个时刻似乎都那么具有代表性。就是在他演绎最为冷峻的角色时，也会闪现无拘无束的快乐瞬间，就是在他演绎那些外表最为轻浮的角色时，总有片刻他的脸上似有阴云蔽目。 威廉姆斯的一生都为毒品和抑郁症所困扰。经历人生的高低起伏，他这一路走来，黑暗与光明总相伴相随。就像杰克·莱蒙，无论是演绎边缘绝境还是快意人生，威廉姆斯都能让人信服。这也是威廉姆斯最让人感到惊喜、难以忘怀的一点：当他把自己的才能发挥到极致的时候，他在奔向观众，同时也在逃离某些东西。
“这个初夏，他上乔纳森·罗斯的脱口秀的时候，他就一直是我们熟悉的那个威廉姆斯，极度兴奋，接近疯子的状态，转换着不同的声线，自问自答说个不停。”《卫报》记者迪卡·艾肯海德在2010年为电影《世上最好的爸爸》撰写的简介中描述道。这是一部黑色喜剧，里面包含令人痛彻心扉的戏剧性情节，主要围绕一封自杀遗书而展开。“然而镜头之外，他完全是另一个人。他举止充满淡定禅意，近乎肃穆哀静，当他不表演的时候，他说话语气低沉，好像要哭一样，特别适合在葬礼上致悼词。”
他第一个令人难忘的角色是从兽人星球来的默克，在《快乐时光》里的客串角色，是一名天外来客，与节目主角皮夹克酷男方兹是对头。“他能给所有人带来欢乐，除了自己。”加里·马歇尔说道，是他选择了威廉姆斯扮演默克，这个角色令他一战成名。作为制作人的马歇尔，对于威廉姆斯的即兴点子印象深刻，于是他专门为威廉姆斯打造了一个续集——《默克与明蒂》。
这个节目比大部分的情景喜剧更具代表性，主要是因为这部剧的主演。无论如何，要像威廉姆斯这样随性的人按照剧本一板一眼地表演可能会有一定难度（他从导师兼朋友乔纳森·温特斯身上学习摸索出自己的那套单口相声风格），而另一方面，他当时已经大量吸食可卡因，对这个习惯，上了年纪的他常常自嘲、反思。他在《罗宾·威廉姆斯：大都会剧院直播秀》上就说过：“可卡因是上天告诉你你赚钱太多了的一个方式。”他当时还有酗酒的问题，但在1983年戒酒了，并且维持了20年，直到他在阿拉斯加拍摄《白夜追凶》，出色地扮演一名疑似精神病杀手的时候，他破戒了。接着就是旧瘾发作，接受治疗，道歉致意。任何与这些纠缠不休的魔爪——药物滥用和抑郁症——对抗过的人都知道，这是个反复的过程，击退外敌，又被心魔打败。不然，就得彻底征服。
就像其他既是单口相声能手又是剧情片出色演员的艺人一样，威廉姆斯扎进人世的阴暗深处，演绎了一众无与伦比的角色。在纷扰挣扎中变得麻木之人的内心世界，对他来说，似乎从不难想象，如他在《天涯沦落两心知》里面的角色，在一次意外的枪击中失去了妻子，然后深信自己是一个探索神圣旅程的骑士；而那些被乏味生活磨蚀了生命力的人，威廉姆斯也能洞悉其心思，从容演绎，例如《无语问苍天》中温顺的医生，或是《盖普眼中的世界》里面的主角，该电影的片头曲《当我年至64》在今天听来更让人心酸。
尽管威廉姆斯参演了《盖普》这部由书本改编而成（曾被认为无法改编）的电影，但是让人们把他视作严肃的戏剧演员还是花了好一段时间，同样，他的其中一部电影最终成为大热也耗费了不少时日。1987年的《早安越南》之后，他成功地在严肃与幽默题材两个领域都有所建树。这部电影完美结合了好莱坞例牌喜剧剧情片的节奏以及威廉姆斯专利式的即兴表演。
《越南》一片非常成功，威廉姆斯为此不得不在人生的下一个十年不断努力才能重塑辉煌，接下来的一系列喜剧都把他打造成一个“笑星”形象，把世人从内心的桎梏中解放出来。其中最优秀的作品有《死亡诗社》，在里面他把单口相声式的即兴表演带到了上世纪50年代的预科学校英语课堂上，那里坐满了备感压抑的年轻人，亟待引领，把握当下；还有迪斯尼的卡通电影《阿拉丁》，威廉姆斯被选为配音角色时备受争议，但是最后证明，那个角色简直就是为他而设的——只有威廉姆斯的快嘴风格才能把一个百变的紫色精灵诠释得惟妙惟肖。
在很长的一段时间里，威廉姆斯出演的角色不是笨好人就是幽默救世主，在上世纪90年代事业低潮期出演的《妙手情真》中他把这两种类型的角色合二为一，该电影讲述一名医生相信欢笑不仅仅是最好的良药，还可以取代真正的药物。偶然他会参演那些“浓妆艳抹”的力作，如《窈窕奶爸》，但有那么一阵子，人们愈发觉得威廉姆斯的本色演技太造作了，题材又太幼稚无深度。
其演艺生涯的秘密转机是1990年的电影《无语问苍天》。片中他扮演一名柔声细气、感情保守的心理医生，与之演对手戏的是性格更张扬的罗伯特·德尼罗，其角色是依靠药物保持清醒的意识障碍病患。当时的威廉姆斯在十年里都被视作是一个能在严肃电影担当角色的“笑星”，但是这次让人窥见了其职业生涯的第三种可能——成为一名性格演员。
自此以后，他的性格演员之路走得不错，就是在一些看似不合适的角色也能有一番作为，以往他的角色形象就是在《默克与明蒂》里的外星人，穿着闪亮的连身裤，在了解到蛋就是未孵化的雏鸟后，他就把其中一个鸟蛋抛到空中并大声嚷嚷：“飞起来！自由了！”
他赢得唯一一座奥斯卡奖座的角色是作为1997年的电影《心灵捕手》的男配角。在电影里他饰演一名社区大学的教授，应大学室友的要求兼职成为临床医生。
许多人打趣说《捕手》对“治疗”有着一种好莱坞式的贬损，一个叛逆的角色（马特·达蒙饰演的守门人，既是数学天才又是孤儿）最后终于克服了严重的自我怀疑和同辈排挤而成功。这样的批评并不是空穴来风，但是这部电影还是有人买账：不仅仅是因为达蒙和本·阿弗莱克野心勃勃、有深度的剧本以及格斯·范·森特精准的导演技巧，还因为主角与威廉姆斯扮演的肖恩·马奎尔之间的关系。他能理解威尔的伤痛，因为癌症夺走了他的妻子，他能够感同身受。
“你不懂得什么是真正的失去，因为只有当你爱一些东西胜过爱自己的时候，你才会明白，”他这样告诉威尔——这是该电影许多动人心弦的场景之一。
“这个世界要流多少泪水是恒定的”——塞缪尔·贝克特在《等待戈多》里面如此写道，1988年在林肯中心上演的《等待戈多》中威廉姆斯就是主演。“有人开始流泪，某个地方的另一个人就停止落泪。对于欢笑，这个道理同样适用。”
如果说流多少眼泪，有多少欢笑，吃多少穿多少这些是恒定的，那么在台上威廉姆斯把自己所有的光与热都耗光后，留给自己的生活就是生命的晦涩与无奈。那些被酒精和毒品摧毁的欢乐，那些被抑郁症夺走的平静，都是他要成名的代价。他在进行一项交易，把那些看似简单的美好拿去交换，得到的一开始是甜蜜，后来却是越发难忍的苦涩。我们只看到了阳光底下的光，却不知道背后的影子黑暗无底，能生生地把一个人的生活给吞没。
——Mac
It’s hard to choose a single moment that represents the career of Robin Williams， who was found dead this morning of an apparent suicide at 63. Somehow they all seem representative. There were flashes of anarchic joy in his grimmest roles， and moments even in his most 1）outwardly 2）featherweight performances when it seemed as though a cloud had passed across his face.
Williams battled drug problems and depression throughout his life. Although he had 3）crests and troughs， the light never traveled far from the darkness or the darkness from the light. Like 4）Jack Lemmon， you could believe Williams as a man standing on a ledge or walking on air. That was the most surprising and often haunting thing about Williams： that sense that when he unleashed the full force of his talent， he was reaching out to the audience and running away from something.
“When he appeared on the Jonathan Ross show earlier this summer， he’d been vintage Williams， hyperactive to the point of deranged， 5）ricocheting between voices， riffing off his internal dialogues，”wrote The Guardian’s Decca Aitkenhead in a 2010 profile 6）pegged to World’s Greatest Dad， a 7）pitchblack comedy with unbearably painful dramatic passages， many of which revolve around a suicide note. “Off-camera， however， he is 8）a different kettle of fish. His bearing is intensely 9）Zen and almost mournful， and when he’s not putting on voices he speaks in a low， tremulous 10）baritone—as if on the verge of tears—that would work very well if he were delivering a funeral 11）eulogy.”
His first 12）indelible character， Mork from Ork， was a one-off supporting character on Happy Days， an extraterrestrial who battled the show’s king of cool， the leather jacketed Fonzie. “He could make everybody happy but himself，” said Garry Marshall， who cast Williams in the star-making role as Mork. Producer Marshall was so impressed with Williams’ hair-trigger imagination that he built a 13）spinoff around him， Mork and Mindy. The show was even more of a situation comedy than most sitcoms， mainly because of who its star was. A man with Williams’s 14）freewheeling brain might’ve had trouble staying on script anyhow—he modeled his standup style on his mentor and friend Jonathan Winters—but at the time he was also feeding a 15）prodigious cocaine habit， one he’d joke about and ruminate on as he got older（“Cocaine is god’s way of telling you you are making too much money，” he said in Robin Williams Live at the Met）. He also drank too much， but got 16）sober in 1983 and stayed sober for 20 years， until he cracked while filming Insomnia （great performance as a possible psychotic killer） on location in Alaska. There were 17）relapses and treatments and apologies； anybody who’s dealt with these oftenintertwined problems， substance addiction and depression， knows you don’t so much beat them as beat them back. Or 18）harness them.
Like many other great stand ups who were also fine dramatic actors， Williams dove into darkness in many of his best roles. He never seemed to be having to imagine his way into the 19）mindset of people who had 20）numbed themselves with chaos （like his character in The Fisher King， who lost his wife in a random shooting and became convinced he was a knight on a holy quest） or routine （like the 21）meek doctor in Awakenings， or the title character in The World According to Garp， whose opening credits song， “When I’m 64”， will pierce more deeply now）.
Despite Garp， a lovely adaptation of a book some thought unadaptable， it took a while for him to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor， and an equally long time for one of his films to hit big. He crossed both achievements off his list after 1987’s Good Morning Vietnam. The film was the perfect merger of formulaic Hollywood comedy-drama beats and Williams’by-then-22）patented brand of 23）riffing.
Vietnam was so successful that Williams strove to recapture it throughout the next decade， in a series of comedies that cast him as a grinning id figure sent to liberate the world from its psychic shackles. The best of these were Dead Poets Society， which transplanted his standupstyle riffing to the English classroom in a 1950s prep school filled with repressed young men who had to be instructed to seize the day； and Disney’s cartoon feature Aladdin， which arguably put Williams， 24）at long last， in the role he was born to play： a purple genie that re-formed itself to incarnate any person， creature or concept Williams’ 25）motor-mouth could 26）invoke. For a long stretch， Williams alternated 27）Holy Fool roles with comic liberator parts （combining the two in his ’90s 28）nadir， Patch Adams， about a doctor who believed laughter was not just the best medicine， but a substitute for actual medicine）. Occasionally he’d 29）toss in a heavymakeup 30）tour-de-force like Mrs. Doubtfire， but for a while there was a growing sense that Williams’ instincts had become too calculated and the material too transparent.
His secret career salvation came in in 1990’s Awakenings， in which he played a soft-spoken， emotionally recessive psychologist opposite a much showier Robert DeNiro as a 31）comatose patient made 32）lucid by medicine. Williams had been a comic leading man with a dramatic streak for over a decade at that point， but one could glimpse a possible third act in his career， as a character actor.
He became a very good one soon afterward， proving himself in roles that seemed ill-suited to the alien in the bright shiny jumpsuit on Mork& Mindy who， upon learning that eggs were 33）unhatched baby birds， tossed one in the air， exclaiming， “Fly！ Be free！”
He won his only Oscar as a supporting player， in 1997’s Good Will Hunting， playing a community college professor 34）moonlighting as a therapist 35）at the request of an old college roommate.
A lot of people mock Hunting as a Hollywood 36）bastardization of therapy， in which a troubled character （Matt Damon’s janitor/math genius/ orphan） finally starts to overcome 37）crippling self-doubt and class resentment. There’s some truth to the criticism， and yet the film still works—not just because of Damon and Ben Affleck’s ambitiously multilayered script and Gus van Sant’s precise direction， but because the central relationship between the hero and Williams’s Sean Maguire， who understands Will’s pain because he lost his wife to cancer， feels raw and true.
“You don’t know about real loss， ’cause that only occurs when you’ve loved something more than you love yourself，” he tells Will—one of the film’s many devastating moments.
“The tears of the world are a 38）constant quantity，” wrote Samuel Beckett in Waiting for Godot， which Williams starred in during a 1988 Lincoln Center production. “For each one who begins to weep， somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.”
要以某个单一时刻来诠释罗宾·威廉姆斯的职业生涯并不容易。今早他被发现自杀身亡，享年63岁。他生涯中的每个时刻似乎都那么具有代表性。就是在他演绎最为冷峻的角色时，也会闪现无拘无束的快乐瞬间，就是在他演绎那些外表最为轻浮的角色时，总有片刻他的脸上似有阴云蔽目。 威廉姆斯的一生都为毒品和抑郁症所困扰。经历人生的高低起伏，他这一路走来，黑暗与光明总相伴相随。就像杰克·莱蒙，无论是演绎边缘绝境还是快意人生，威廉姆斯都能让人信服。这也是威廉姆斯最让人感到惊喜、难以忘怀的一点：当他把自己的才能发挥到极致的时候，他在奔向观众，同时也在逃离某些东西。
“这个初夏，他上乔纳森·罗斯的脱口秀的时候，他就一直是我们熟悉的那个威廉姆斯，极度兴奋，接近疯子的状态，转换着不同的声线，自问自答说个不停。”《卫报》记者迪卡·艾肯海德在2010年为电影《世上最好的爸爸》撰写的简介中描述道。这是一部黑色喜剧，里面包含令人痛彻心扉的戏剧性情节，主要围绕一封自杀遗书而展开。“然而镜头之外，他完全是另一个人。他举止充满淡定禅意，近乎肃穆哀静，当他不表演的时候，他说话语气低沉，好像要哭一样，特别适合在葬礼上致悼词。”
他第一个令人难忘的角色是从兽人星球来的默克，在《快乐时光》里的客串角色，是一名天外来客，与节目主角皮夹克酷男方兹是对头。“他能给所有人带来欢乐，除了自己。”加里·马歇尔说道，是他选择了威廉姆斯扮演默克，这个角色令他一战成名。作为制作人的马歇尔，对于威廉姆斯的即兴点子印象深刻，于是他专门为威廉姆斯打造了一个续集——《默克与明蒂》。
这个节目比大部分的情景喜剧更具代表性，主要是因为这部剧的主演。无论如何，要像威廉姆斯这样随性的人按照剧本一板一眼地表演可能会有一定难度（他从导师兼朋友乔纳森·温特斯身上学习摸索出自己的那套单口相声风格），而另一方面，他当时已经大量吸食可卡因，对这个习惯，上了年纪的他常常自嘲、反思。他在《罗宾·威廉姆斯：大都会剧院直播秀》上就说过：“可卡因是上天告诉你你赚钱太多了的一个方式。”他当时还有酗酒的问题，但在1983年戒酒了，并且维持了20年，直到他在阿拉斯加拍摄《白夜追凶》，出色地扮演一名疑似精神病杀手的时候，他破戒了。接着就是旧瘾发作，接受治疗，道歉致意。任何与这些纠缠不休的魔爪——药物滥用和抑郁症——对抗过的人都知道，这是个反复的过程，击退外敌，又被心魔打败。不然，就得彻底征服。
就像其他既是单口相声能手又是剧情片出色演员的艺人一样，威廉姆斯扎进人世的阴暗深处，演绎了一众无与伦比的角色。在纷扰挣扎中变得麻木之人的内心世界，对他来说，似乎从不难想象，如他在《天涯沦落两心知》里面的角色，在一次意外的枪击中失去了妻子，然后深信自己是一个探索神圣旅程的骑士；而那些被乏味生活磨蚀了生命力的人，威廉姆斯也能洞悉其心思，从容演绎，例如《无语问苍天》中温顺的医生，或是《盖普眼中的世界》里面的主角，该电影的片头曲《当我年至64》在今天听来更让人心酸。
尽管威廉姆斯参演了《盖普》这部由书本改编而成（曾被认为无法改编）的电影，但是让人们把他视作严肃的戏剧演员还是花了好一段时间，同样，他的其中一部电影最终成为大热也耗费了不少时日。1987年的《早安越南》之后，他成功地在严肃与幽默题材两个领域都有所建树。这部电影完美结合了好莱坞例牌喜剧剧情片的节奏以及威廉姆斯专利式的即兴表演。
《越南》一片非常成功，威廉姆斯为此不得不在人生的下一个十年不断努力才能重塑辉煌，接下来的一系列喜剧都把他打造成一个“笑星”形象，把世人从内心的桎梏中解放出来。其中最优秀的作品有《死亡诗社》，在里面他把单口相声式的即兴表演带到了上世纪50年代的预科学校英语课堂上，那里坐满了备感压抑的年轻人，亟待引领，把握当下；还有迪斯尼的卡通电影《阿拉丁》，威廉姆斯被选为配音角色时备受争议，但是最后证明，那个角色简直就是为他而设的——只有威廉姆斯的快嘴风格才能把一个百变的紫色精灵诠释得惟妙惟肖。
在很长的一段时间里，威廉姆斯出演的角色不是笨好人就是幽默救世主，在上世纪90年代事业低潮期出演的《妙手情真》中他把这两种类型的角色合二为一，该电影讲述一名医生相信欢笑不仅仅是最好的良药，还可以取代真正的药物。偶然他会参演那些“浓妆艳抹”的力作，如《窈窕奶爸》，但有那么一阵子，人们愈发觉得威廉姆斯的本色演技太造作了，题材又太幼稚无深度。
其演艺生涯的秘密转机是1990年的电影《无语问苍天》。片中他扮演一名柔声细气、感情保守的心理医生，与之演对手戏的是性格更张扬的罗伯特·德尼罗，其角色是依靠药物保持清醒的意识障碍病患。当时的威廉姆斯在十年里都被视作是一个能在严肃电影担当角色的“笑星”，但是这次让人窥见了其职业生涯的第三种可能——成为一名性格演员。
自此以后，他的性格演员之路走得不错，就是在一些看似不合适的角色也能有一番作为，以往他的角色形象就是在《默克与明蒂》里的外星人，穿着闪亮的连身裤，在了解到蛋就是未孵化的雏鸟后，他就把其中一个鸟蛋抛到空中并大声嚷嚷：“飞起来！自由了！”
他赢得唯一一座奥斯卡奖座的角色是作为1997年的电影《心灵捕手》的男配角。在电影里他饰演一名社区大学的教授，应大学室友的要求兼职成为临床医生。
许多人打趣说《捕手》对“治疗”有着一种好莱坞式的贬损，一个叛逆的角色（马特·达蒙饰演的守门人，既是数学天才又是孤儿）最后终于克服了严重的自我怀疑和同辈排挤而成功。这样的批评并不是空穴来风，但是这部电影还是有人买账：不仅仅是因为达蒙和本·阿弗莱克野心勃勃、有深度的剧本以及格斯·范·森特精准的导演技巧，还因为主角与威廉姆斯扮演的肖恩·马奎尔之间的关系。他能理解威尔的伤痛，因为癌症夺走了他的妻子，他能够感同身受。
“你不懂得什么是真正的失去，因为只有当你爱一些东西胜过爱自己的时候，你才会明白，”他这样告诉威尔——这是该电影许多动人心弦的场景之一。
“这个世界要流多少泪水是恒定的”——塞缪尔·贝克特在《等待戈多》里面如此写道，1988年在林肯中心上演的《等待戈多》中威廉姆斯就是主演。“有人开始流泪，某个地方的另一个人就停止落泪。对于欢笑，这个道理同样适用。”