In His Final Film Role, Robin Williams Voices a Chatty Pup in ‘Absolutely Anything’
The late Robin Williams’ final movie, the comedy Absolutely Anything, was originally titled The Dog Who Saved The World. Guess who plays the dog? In this first clip (via Deadline Hollywood), a disillusioned teacher (Simon Pegg) who is granted the power to do “absolutely anything” gives his dog (Williams) the power of speech. Unsurprisingly, his pet is more interested in doggie treats than having a thoughtful conversation.
Williams signed on for the canine role four years ago following a conversation with director Terry Jones, who also cast his Monty Python cohorts John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin as the aliens who give Pegg his supernatural powers. “One thing we’re grateful to Robin for is he was the first to come on and he stuck with the whole thing,” co-writer Gavin Scott told Deadline. “The kind of attitude that led him to stick with the project through all its ups and downs, he totally exhibited here. He wanted to make everybody feel good from the engineer to the lady making the coffee. It was very late in the day for him and we didn’t know that, but he was a real mensch.”
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As further evidence of how much Williams cared about his work, Jones recalls that he recorded his vocals for Absolutely Anything three times. “We first filmed him with me directing via Skype, but there was a ten-second delay. He wasn’t satisfied with the recording, so Bill and I went to San Francisco to re-record him, live,” Jones explains. “Then he rang me up on my mobile and said, ‘I just got an idea — Dennis [the dog] is a sixteen-year-old boy!’” Absolutely Anything will be released in the UK next spring.
