Robin Williams took his own life in 2014, but his impact on Hollywood and the world remains. One of his former co-stars, Nathan Lane, recounted the kindness Williams showed him when he was struggling with his public sexual identity following his portrayal of a gay drag queen in the film The Birdcage.
Lane and Williams played a gay couple in The Birdcage
The Birdcage is a comedy released in 1996 starring Nathan Lane and Robin Williams as a gay couple living in South Beach, Miami. Williams’ character is the owner of a drag club and Lane’s character is its star attraction, but the two must put up a straight front in order to meet the right-wing family of their son’s new fiancée.
The film topped the box office on its opening weekend, grossing a whopping $124 million domestically. It was praised for not only entertaining audiences through the comic brilliance of Williams and Lane together, but for also conveying an important message about acceptance.
Lane wasn’t ready to open up about his sexuality
Lane and Williams went on a press tour for the film following its release, and one of their stops was on The Oprah Winfrey Show. At the time, Lane wasn’t ready to open up about his sexuality and was afraid that it might come up during their interview. “I said to Robin beforehand, ‘I’m not prepared. I’m so scared of going out there and talking to Oprah. I’m not prepared to discuss that I’m gay on national television. I’m not ready.'” Lane said he “certainly wasn’t ready to go from table-to-table and tell them all I was gay.”
Instead, he hoped the conversation would focus on his attaining the role – one of the biggest of his career at that point. “I just wanted to talk about I finally got a big part in a movie and I didn’t want to make it about my sexuality, although it was sort of unavoidable because of the nature of the film and the character,” Lane explained. “I just wanted to do good work, and I hoped that people would like it.”
Williams was a ‘saint’ for changing the subject
During the interview with Winfrey, her questions took a turn toward Lane’s real-life sexuality. “I don’t think Oprah was trying to out me,” Lane explained. Given the nature of the film, Lane kind of figured it would come up, which was why he was nervous in the first place. Winfrey’s blunt style brought the topic around quickly.
“She was like, ‘How come you’re so good at that girlie stuff? Are you worried about being typecast?'” Lane described. Thankfully, in chimed Williams to take the onus off of Lane. “And then Robin sort of swoops in and diverts Oprah, goes off on a tangent and protects me because he was a saint,” Lane said fondly of his late co-star. “Robin was just the greatest person, just such a beautiful, sensitive soul and so kind and generous to me,” he said. “And it was, you know, it was sort of prescient about gay marriage.”
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Lane eventually publicly came out as gay during a 1999 interview with the Advocate, and has happily shared 25 years with his partner, Devlin Elliott.