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Friday April 19, 2024

Sam Neill speaks of his friendship with Robin Williams, ‘irresistibly, outrageously funny’

Sam Neill and Robin Williams worked together in 1999's 'Bicentennial Man'

By Web Desk
March 23, 2023

File footage

Sam Neill reflected on his friendship with legendary star, late Robin Williams.

Neill, who worked alongside the Jumanji star in 1999's Bicentennial Man, said at that time the two would have "great chats" throughout their visits to each other trailers.

Neill detailed his friendship with Williams in his upcoming new memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This?

"We would talk about this and that, sometimes even about the work we were about to do," explained the Jurassic Park star, 75, adding that Williams "was irresistibly, outrageously, irrepressibly, gigantically funny."

Neill credited the Dead Poets Society actor as the "funniest person" he ever worked with, he went on to share that Williams was also "the saddest person I ever met."

"He had fame, he was rich, people loved him, great kids—the world was his oyster. And yet I felt more sorry for him than I can express. He was the loneliest man on a lonely planet," penned the Peaky Blinders star.

Neill also expressed that he remembers Williams seeming "inconsolably solitary, and deeply depressed."

Williams died by suicide at the age of 63 on Aug. 11, 2014. It was later discovered the actor had Lewy body dementia, the second-most common type of progressive dementia after Alzheimer's disease.