Jumanji Child Star Reveals How Robin Williams Stood up for Him

It’s been over six years since Robin Williams’ death, but stories about the legendary entertainer’s kindness and professionalism continue to emerge. With last week having marked the 25th anniversary of the family adventure film Jumanji, one of the film’s child stars Bradley Pierce shared another such story about Williams, recalling how the actor stood up for him and co-star Kirsten Dunst when a producer wanted to push overtime for a difficult scene in the film.

Speaking with CBCListen (via PEOPLE), Pierce explained that Williams stepped in on behalf of him when a producer wanted to keep going past the end of day to keep filming a scene shot in a rain tank in order to save money on the production.

“We were filming the monsoon scene and I think it was day 7 or 8 in that rain tank, Pierce who played Peter Shepherd in the film explained. “We were all in wetsuits but spending 8 hours in the water was really draining. It was coming to the end of the day and children on set can only be on set for a certain number of hours. Producers approached our parents and said, ‘We’ve only got a half hour left of shooting, is there any way we can do a little bit of overtime just to get it done?’”

While the overtime would have saved around $100,000, Pierce said when Williams heard about the request, he got involved and made it clear that they were done for the day.

“Robin caught wind of these conversations happening and apparently he pulled the director and the producers aside and said, ‘No we’re not doing any extra time. You’re gonna let everyone out of the pool now and we’re going to come back next week,’” Pierce said. “For all the dollars that would have cost, nobody else could have stood up the way he did.”

Pierce further explained that Williams wasn’t just protective of people on set, he also went out of his way to ensure that was comfortable on set, recounting how Williams would come to set early while Pierce was in the makeup chair to be transformed into the human-monkey hybrid his character was turned into for cheating in the film.

“He would tell stories about some of his experiences with the Mrs. Doubtfire make-up. That was just the kind of guy he was, he wanted all of the people around him to be happy and comfortable. It meant a lot to me because for a twelve or thirteen year old boy, sitting in a make-up chair for three hours, first thing in the morning, this guy who is an amazing professional that everybody admires, understands what sitting in the make-up chair two hours before anybody else is on set really feels like. he was just hanging out, trying to make me feel better.”

Released on December 15, 1995, Jumanji was a box office success, grossing $263 million worldwide, making it the 10th highest-grossing film of that year. The film spawned three additional films, the stand-alone spinoff Zathura: A Space Adventure released in 2005 and two more “proper” sequels, 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and 2019’s Jumanji: The Next Level, the latter of which saw Bebe Neuwirth briefly reprise her role as Nora Shepherd from the original film.