Lisa Jakub received a letter from her high school telling her not to return while she was fifteen years old and filming Mrs. Doubtfire. When production began, she was a ninth grader at a Canadian school.
She would set up a system to send her assignments back and forth because there was no internet to submit work online. Up until it didn’t, it worked. After a few months, Jakub was ousted by the school, which determined the arrangement wasn’t working for them.
She was shattered at the age of fifteen. When Robin Williams saw that she was upset, he did what Robin Williams seems to have just done. He wrote a letter to the principal requesting support for her career and education.
The punchline being, “The principal got the letter, framed the letter, put it up in the office, and didn’t ask me to come back. Amazing.” Jakub told the story during a reunion of the Mrs. Doubtfire cast on the Brotherly Love podcast.
Nevertheless, she was accepted to the University of Virginia. When she did, a teaching assistant gave her a statistics assignment and wrote, “Dear Doubtfire Girl, you got a B-.” She also got something more difficult to grade from her time working with Williams.
In contrast to the scripted rhythms she had learned as a child actor, she regarded working with him as a crash course in presence and spontaneity. “We had always used a script, so I knew when it was my turn to speak, I could say my line. Then you go on set with Robin, and it’s like, who the f–k knows what’s going to happen now?” she said.
Later on, he also wrote a college recommendation letter for her. She was never asked to return by the school, but she did well. This incident is just one more example of Robin Williams’ remarkable compassion in addition to his skill as an actor.
According to Entertainment Weekly, he also wrote Lawrence a recommendation letter for college years later. Teaching child actors on set can be challenging and differs from regular classroom instruction.
When filming Mrs Doubtfire(1993), Robin Williams' onscreen daughter Lisa Jakub was expelled from school as they didn't want a "non-traditional student". He personally wrote a letter to her principal, praising her caliber. It didn't work, but they kept the letter framed pic.twitter.com/i4EhRNCyve
— Hidden Movie Details (@moviedetail) May 23, 2020
Judith Phillips has trained a number of child actors for movies like Jurassic World, The King's Speech, Assassin's Creed, and the last Harry Potter movie. "There is no average day. I could be on call from as early as 8 a.m., but I might not see my pupil until 3 p.m....,” she revealed in an interview with The Guardian.
“Time is money on the film set, so when you get a knock on the door saying they need your pupil on set, it’s not a case of finishing up what you’re working on – it’s put your pen down and go,” she said.
According to Phillips, each student may receive up to five hours of tutoring per day. Additionally, she mentioned that when her students are dressed in costumes, it might be difficult for them to learn because they need to be extra careful about the type of stationery they use.
After being released in 1993, Mrs. Doubtfire made $20.4 million in three days. The following year, it received an Oscar for Best Makeup and made $441 million at the global box office.
