Longtime Disney animator Ron Clements co-directed Disney’s 1992 “Aladdin” alongside John Musker. He shares his memories of working with Robin Williams on the animated blockbuster.
Improv in voice acting has been a part of Disney films going all the way back to “Snow White.” But Robin Williams’ Genie [in “Aladdin”] was something extraordinary. [Co-writer and co-director] John Musker and I wrote the original script with the specific idea that Robin would voice the genie and that he would be a visual as well as vocal shape-shifter. Robin would be encouraged to improvise to his heart’s content.
On the first day of recording [Genie’s intro] we had script pages written in Robin’s improv style and storyboards illustrating some of the visual metamorphosing we were planning. He started out recording the script as written a few times, then took off in a multitude of directions. The original scene was meant to be about three minutes long.
Improv in voice acting has been a part of Disney films going all the way back to “Snow White.” But Robin Williams’ Genie [in “Aladdin”] was something extraordinary. [Co-writer and co-director] John Musker and I wrote the original script with the specific idea that Robin would voice the genie and that he would be a visual as well as vocal shape-shifter. Robin would be encouraged to improvise to his heart’s content.
On the first day of recording [Genie’s intro] we had script pages written in Robin’s improv style and storyboards illustrating some of the visual metamorphosing we were planning. He started out recording the script as written a few times, then took off in a multitude of directions. The original scene was meant to be about three minutes long.
- 1/28/2021
- by Terry Flores
- Variety Film + TV
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