Robin Williams‘ co-star Sam Neill recalled the comedian as being one of the most depressed and lonely people he’d ever met in an intimate new memoir.
Neill, who appeared alongside Williams in the 1999 film Bicentennial Man, wrote in his upcoming book Did I Ever Tell You This? that the pair would have ‘great chats’ during filming and described Williams’ magnetic personality.
The Jurassic Park star said though the prolific comedian was ‘irresistibly, outrageously, irrepressibly, gigantically funny,’ those were traits he could switch on off and on, according to PEOPLE.
Neill, 75, said he could ‘sense the dark space inside’ Williams, and that the actor was ‘the saddest person I ever met.’
More than ten years after the two appeared on screen together, Williams died by suicide at 63 during a severe bout of his ongoing depression.
Robin Williams died by suicide in 2014 at the age of 63 after years of depression
Williams (left) and Sam Neil appear on the set of the 1999 film Bicentennial Man
In his memoir, Neill said he and Williams ‘would talk about this and that, sometimes even about the work we were about to do.’
‘Funny stuff just poured out of him. And everybody was in stitches, and when everybody was in stitches, you could see Robin was happy,’ Neill wrote, ‘as soon as he flung open the door, he was on.’
But despite his outwardly exuberant and happy appearance, Neill said he could tell Williams was ‘inconsolably solitary, and deeply depressed.’
‘He had fame, he was rich, people loved him, great kids – the world was his oyster,’ Neil said in his memoir.
‘And yet I felt more sorry for him than I can express. He was the loneliest man on a lonely planet.’
After Williams’ suicide, representatives said ‘he had been battling severe depression of late.’
He had recently been misdiagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but an autopsy after his death revealed he had been suffering from Lewy body dementia. In addition to arresting physical movement, the condition can exacerbate depression, and cause severe psychological symptoms.
Sam Neill wrote his memoir while battling blood cancer, which he has since beaten
Sam Neill’s memoir. He said writing it helped him get through cancer treatment
Neill’s memoir comes as he revealed he was diagnosed with stage-three blood cancer, a diagnosis which he has since kicked but will continue to be treated for.
He told The Guardian he wound up writing it during his treatment and was unable to work.
‘I found myself with nothing to do,’ he said. ‘And I’m used to working. I love working. I love going to work. I love being with people every day and enjoying human company and friendship and all these things. And suddenly I was deprived of that. And I thought, ‘what am I going to do?’
‘I realized it was actually sort of giving me a reason to live and I would go to bed thinking, I’ll write about that tomorrow… that will entertain me.’
‘It was a lifesaver really, because I couldn’t have gone through that with nothing to do.’
During the interview, he said he wasn’t afraid of death, but said it would be ‘annoying’ to miss out on the rest of his life.
‘I’m not afraid to die, but it would annoy me,’ Neill said. ‘Because I’d really like another decade or two, you know? We’ve built all these lovely terraces, we’ve got these olive trees and cypresses, and I want to be around to see it all mature. And I’ve got my lovely little grandchildren. I want to see them get big. But as for the dying? I couldn’t care less.’
