The child actors from “Mrs. Doubtfire“ recently reunited nearly 31 years after the movie’s release for a joint interview on the “Brotherly Love” podcast, where Lisa Jakubrevealed that Robin Williams wrote a letter to her school principal when she got expelled for taking time off to star in the blockbuster comedy film (via Entertainment Weekly). Jakub starred in the movie as Lydia Hillard, the eldest daughter of Williams and Sally Field’s characters.
“I got thrown out of high school on‘Doubtfire,'” Jakub told her costars Matthew Lawrence (who played middle child Christopher) and Mara Wilson (who played the youngest, Natalie). “I’m Canadian. I was attending high school in Canada, then I left for four months to film the movie. We were going to set up this system, pre-internet, where I’d mail my school work back and forth to the school. We did that for a while.”
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“As Matt well remembers, we had tutoring, three hours of schoolwork on set every day,” she continued. “We were a couple of months into filming, and my school in Canada sent a note saying: ‘This isn’t working for us anymore, don’t come back.’ Yeah, 9th grade. I was devastated. It was just so heartbreaking, because I had this life that was very unusual, and that was the one normal thing.”
According to Jakub, Williams could tell she was devastated on the “Mrs. Doubtfire” set and stepped in to try and intervene.
“The amazing thing was Robin saw that I was upset — he asked me what was going on,” Jakub said. “He wrote a letter to my principal saying that he wanted them to rethink this decision and that I was just trying to pursue my education and career at the same time, and could they please support me in this. The principal got the letter, framed the letter, put it up in the office, and didn’t ask me to come back. Amazing.”
It turns out this wasn’t the first time Williams would step in to fight for his younger co-stars’ education. Lawrence revealed that Williams once wrote a letter of recommendation to help him get into the University of Southern California.
“Mrs. Doubtfire” starred Williams as a father who decides to dress up as a female housekeeper so he can work for his estranged wife and see his children. The movie was the second highest-grossing film of 1993 with $441 million worldwide.
“Mrs. Doubtfire” director Chris Columbus revealed toBusiness Insiderlast year that talks for a sequel to the movie only started in 2014, shortly before Robin Williams’ death. Without the actor, there was not a shot that Columbus would ever make a follow-up.
“We had a script that was written and it was the last time I saw Robin,” he said. “I went to his house and we sat down and talked about it and the script was really strong. Robin’s only comment was, ‘Boss, do I have to be in the suit as much this time?’ It was physically demanding. For Robin, I think it was like running a marathon every day he was in the Doubtfire costume. He was older, obviously. So we talked about it and I think he was hoping in the rewrite we would cut back on the Doubtfire character. But then Robin passed away so there will never be a sequel to ‘Mrs. Doubtfire.’”
Listen to the cast members full interview on the “Brotherly Love” podcast here.
