The Birdcage is one of the best ’90s movies, and that’s in great part because of the hilarious moments between Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. Now, ahead of the comedy celebrating its bittersweet 30th anniversary next year (considering Robin Williams died in 2014), Lane is sharing memories of working with his co-star that simultaneously sweet and emotional.
Nathan Lane spoke about getting cast on The Birdcage while on the Dinner’s On Me With Jesse Tyler Ferguson podcast. Here’s what he had to say about working with Robin Williams:
He was a movie star. You know, he could have said, ‘I want Billy Crystal,’ or another big movie name to do the film. I know they showed him [my] screen test, and he didn’t know who the hell I was. And he was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ He was just, as you heard, incredibly generous and sensitive and [a] kind soul and very — we were sort of kindred spirits in a way. He was just so wildly funny and brilliant and a comic genius and a wonderful actor, and, you know, we always had that bond from that film.
Of course he was, this is Robin Williams. Nathan Lane had all positive things to say about the Armand to his Albert on The Birdcage ahead of it being three decades since its 1996 release.
Williams, of course, had so many successful movies over the years, from his start in Mork and Mindy to his Oscar-winning work in Good Will Hunting. To this day, all of these projects along with The Birdcage have stood as classics and are remarkable examples of the actor’s talent. To that point, Lane said he watched the movie he made with Williams for the first time in a while recently, and it was an emotional experience:
I did a thing for the New Yorker Festival and they showed a scene from it, and I hadn’t seen it in a while, and I hadn’t seen it since he had died, and I just started crying. You know that scene at the bus stop, where he gives the palimony. … It’s my favorite scene in the film, and it’s so sort of Robin just being so simple and true.
Aww, this is so sweet and has me in my feelings over the pair. Clearly, Nathan Lane and Robin Williams had a blast on The Birdcage, and the actor is greatly missed following his death.
In the 1996 movie helmed by Mike Nichols, the pair play a gay couple, with Williams’ Armand being the owner of a drag club and Lane’s Albert being the star queen of the club. Hilarity ensues when they decide to conceal their identities for Armand’s 20-year-old son when he is engaged to the daughter of a conservative senator. Check out some of the best moments between The Birdcage’s leading couple:
The Birdcage is considered a groundbreaking movie for the LGBTQ+ community since it was one of the few major studio films about queer characters. While Williams wasn’t gay, Nathan Lane is, but at the time wasn’t as big of a star as Willams was.
When speaking about getting the part, Lane said he originally had to turn it down because he was doing A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum on Broadway, but ultimately after Nichols insisted he was the right one for the part, he convinced the show’s producer to delay so he could shoot the movie. Thank goodness all that happened too, because then we wouldn’t get to hear stories like this:
There was a musical number I had to do in the night club… I sang in the club ‘Can That Boy Foxtrot!’ I did the whole number with a crowd in the club, so [Robin] had a day off while I was doing that. And he came in the day to be there. I said, ‘Why are you here, it’s your day off?’ He said, ‘I want to be here for you. I want to support you in this.’
The Birdcage was initially envisioned to star Steve Martin as Armand and Williams as Albert, but Martin was unavailable and Williams didn’t want to play Albert after starring in Mrs. Doubtfire. So, Nathan Lane was hired, and what a great duo they were!!
We can’t think of any other pair to play these characters in the 1996 film. If you are looking to see them on screen together, The Birdcage is currently one of the best movies on Max and it’s available to stream with an Amazon Prime subscription.
