Watch: Robin Williams' son reveals his father's struggles in new documentary's emotional trailer
HBO has released the debut trailer for late actor Robin Williams' documentary about his life, which teases an intimate look at the life and times of the beloved comedian before his sudden passing four years ago. The trailer also gives an insight into the troubles that the actor went through during his best and darkest hours.
The film, titled 'Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind', is directed by Marina Zenovich, and offers some never-before-seen footage of the late comedian, along with some intimate conversations that the actor had with some of his closest friends and family.
At one point in the trailer, when Robin was asked about his childhood and if he suffered from a fear of abandonment, he said, “Yeah, it’s a primal fear for any child and it dictates a lot of how you deal with life.”
Even though he had a satisfactory childhood, owing to his wealthy parents, Robin spent a lot of his time feeling painfully shy. He revealed that he would often retreat into his own world of pretend and solitude since he found it hard to consider his family as being particularly warm. “The ideal child was seen, not heard,” he had said in an interview in 2009.
In the trailer, the actor is heard saying, “Every person is driven by some deep secret,” adding later, “There was fear sometimes to run away from it all, sometimes to run into it all.”
As previously reported, Robin suffered from Lewy body dementia, a type of brain disease that affected his thinking, memory, and movement control, before he eventually died of a suicide in August 2014. My father didn’t always feel he was succeeding, but he was the most successful person I know,” his son Zachary said in the trailer.
After his death, Robin's wife Susan spoke about his deteriorating health in an interview, where she revealed that in the months leading up to his death, her husband’s symptoms worsened and even doctors weren’t able to make the diagnosis until they performed the actor’s autopsy.
“I know now the doctors, the whole team was doing exactly the right things,” Susan continued. “It’s just that this disease was faster than us and bigger than us. We would have gotten there eventually.”
Since the documentary is a commentary and insight into the troubled life of the movie star, it has been narrated majorly through some of the past interviews that Robin did with various outlets before his death. However, the documentary also contains interviews with prominent celebrities such as Billy Crystal, Eric Idle, Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, and Steve Martin, along Robin's family members.
And although the family is still deeply affected by the actor's death, they are moving on to better days, since it was recently announced that his youngest son, Cody, is all set to marry his longtime girlfriend Maria Flores.
Cody's sister Zelda posted about the engagement online with a photo of Maria holding her hand out that had “I SAID YES” written on it, all the while displaying her huge engagement ring on her ring finger.
“Two of my favorite humans on this big blue marble got engaged yesterday,” Zelda wrote underneath, adding: “To watch you grow from an annoying little brother who I fought with constantly (but definitely loved) into one of the most incredible I’m honored to know and in awe of constantly has been a true joy for me.”