Yahoo News ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ Teen Star Says Robin Williams Spoke ‘Super Honestly About Mental Health’ and Made Her Feel Like ‘I’m Not a Freak. I Don’t Have to Hide This About Myself’
“Mrs. Doubtfire” teen star Lisa Jakub marked the Memorial Day holiday by talking to Fox News Digital about her nonprofit organization Mission Flexible, which she founded two years ago to help support veterans suffering from anxiety, depression and more. She linked her work with veterans back to her most famous co-star, the late Robin Williams, revealing she was told after “Mrs. Doubtfire” that Williams always made sure veterans had the chance to be a part of his movies’ film crews.
“So many people have told me that Robin did a lot of work with the veteran population as well, and that he always had production crews hire local veterans to be background actors or things like that on set, which is not something I ever knew about when I worked with him… but I also love that little connection as well,” Jakub told Fox News Digital.
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In fact, it was Williams who first spoke openly to her about mental health struggles when they worked together on “Mrs. Doubtfire.”
“Robin was everything you would hope Robin would be, and it’s so wonderful to think back on him now,” Jakub told the outlet. “[I am] grateful that I got to be in his presence, that I got to be working with him, that he was so kind to me.”
“[He was] probably one of the first people who ever really spoke to me super honestly about mental health,” she added. “And he would talk to me about his struggles and the things that he went through. And it was the first time that I felt like, ‘Oh, I’m not a freak. I don’t have to hide this about myself. This is just something that some of us have to deal with’.”
“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. Jakub starred in the movie as Lydia Hillard, the eldest daughter of Williams and Sally Field’s characters. Matthew Lawrence (who played middle child Christopher) and Mara Wilson (who played the youngest, Natalie) played her siblings.
During an interview with her co-stars on the “Brotherly Love” podcast earlier this month, Jakub remembered how Williams helped her life in other ways. When she was kicked out of high school for taking time off to shoot “Mrs. Doubtfire,” for instance, Williams tried to get her reenrolled.
“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.”
Head over to Fox News Digital’s website to listen to Jakub’s full latest interview.
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