Robin Williams Would 'Be Alive' If Christopher Reeve 'Was Still Around,' Says Glenn Close in New Doc

The new documentary ‘Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story’ explores the close friendship between late actors Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve

Glenn Close is shedding light on the special friendship between the late Christopher Reeve and Robin Williams.

In the documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Jan. 21 in Park City, Utah, Close is one of several interviewees looking back at the life and legacy of Reeve.

“I always felt that if Chris was still around, Robin would still be alive,” says Close in the film.

Williams, who at age 63 died in 2014 by suicide, coped with mental health struggles throughout his prolific screen career. After studying and rooming with Reeve at New York’s Juilliard School starting in 1973, the Oscar winner developed a close friendship with the Superman star. 

Related: Remembering Robin Williams' Life in Photos

Reeve died in 2004 from cardiac arrest at age 52, nine years after a spinal cord injury from a horseback riding accident left him paralyzed, in a wheelchair and dependent on a ventilator to breathe.

Close, 76, who starred with Williams in 1982’s The World According to Garp, first said she was “convinced” the Mrs. Doubtfire star would still be alive if Reeve were too in 2017, at the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation's annual "A Magical Evening" Gala.

"Their friendship, their connection, is the stuff of legend. It not only endured, but became a life-giving force sustaining them both," Close said at the time, as ET News reported.

"On Friday evenings, Chris would literally swoop in, piloting his own plane, scoop Robin up, and away they would fly for the weekend,” she added, recalling the summer she and Williams filmed Garp. “On Sunday, late afternoon, Chris would swoop back in and deliver Robin back — I have to say a little worse for wear."

Close said she saw Reeve and Williams as “on top of the world” throughout their decades-long friendship. “They were living the kind of fast and crazy life that our business can hand to you if you become a wildly famous phenomenon, practically overnight."

Related: Christopher Reeve's Son Recalls Dad's 'Incredible' Oscars Appearance After Paralyzing Accident (Exclusive)

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Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story includes intimate interviews with Reeve’s three children Matthew, Alexandra and Will — in attendance at the Sundance premiere — and wife Dana, who died in 2006 from lung cancer. Their children all serve on the board of directors for the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which is dedicated to researching a cure for spinal cord injuries.

While he struggled in the hospital, the doc also reveals in detail, Reeve told his wife, “Maybe we should let me go.” 

She refused to let him die, responding, “You’re still you and I love you.”

Super/Man includes memories from Reeve’s friends Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon and Jeff Daniels. It also covers an anecdote mentioned in Reeve’s 1998 memoir Still Me, shared by Williams himself in an archival interview, involving the Good Will Hunting actor pretending to be a proctologist in order to surprise a hospitalized Reeve.

“I came in as a Russian proctologist, put on a glove and said, ‘We’re going to have to examine this thing,’” the late actor recalls.

Following a tearful Sundance reception, the doc’s filmmakers, Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, are now nearing a deal to sell distribution rights to Warner Bros. Discovery, per Variety.

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