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Guilt from one friend’s death lead Robin Williams to another’s side
Lisa Jakub will never forget how much her former onscreen dad cared for her.
The 45-year-old former actress recalled when Robin Williams, who played her father in the 1993 comedy classic "Mrs. Doubtfire," wrote a letter to her school principal after she found out she was being expelled because she’d spent so much time away filming.
"I got thrown out of high school on ‘Doubtfire,’" Jakub revealed on former "Mrs. Doubtfire" castmate Matthew Lawrence’s "Brotherly Love" podcast this week.
"I was attending high school in Canada, and then I left for like four months to go film the movie, and we were going to set up this system, right? This is pre-internet where I would mail my schoolwork back and forth to the school and we did that for a while."
Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire. ( 20th Century-Fox/Getty Images)
But, she said, despite that effort on her part and the three hours of onset tutoring the child actors all had each day, the school eventually sent her a note that said, "'This isn’t working for us anymore. Don’t come back.' Ninth grade, I was devastated."
She added, "It was just so heartbreaking 'cause I had this life that was very unusual and that was kind of the one normal thing."
Jakub said the "amazing thing" was that Williams saw she was upset, asked her about it and ultimately ended up "writing a letter to my principal saying that he wanted them to rethink this decision and that I was just trying to pursue my education and my career at the same time and could they please support me in this?"
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Ironically, she said her former principal framed the letter from the comedy legend and put it up in his office, "but didn’t ask me to come back. Amazing."
Lisa Jakub at the 1993 premiere of "Mrs. Doubtfire."
Jakub, who said she left acting at 22 years old without a high school degree, said she eventually got her GED and now, among other things, runs a nonprofit that helps military veterans adjust back to civilian life.
"You know what's incredible? Like the enduring power of this film. It’s unbelievable," Lawrence said while they reminisced about "Mrs. Doubtfire" after being joined by their third onscreen sibling, Mara Wilson. "It’s arguably one of the best family comedies ever – probably ever, actually. It’s incredible how much it has meant to people and generations of people."
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Lisa Jakub now runs a nonprofit that helps military veterans, among other things. (Bobby Bank/Getty Images)
Later in the podcast, Jakub said that Williams, a famous improver, taught her that craft.
"I had been working for a decade when I started on 'Doubtfire,’ but we had always used a script, so I knew when it was my turn to speak, and I could say my line, right? And then you go on set with Robin, and it’s like who the f--- knows what’s going to happen now!’" she laughed. "And so you had to be really present."
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Robin Williams at the "Mrs. Doubtfire" premiere. (Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
She said working with the comedian, who died in 2014, was much more "meditative" than her past acting experiences, which she described as more "rote."
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"You know you’re just going to go with it because he’s Robin and you can trust him," she added.
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