Russell Brand says Robin Williams’ death is a tragic reminder "that suicide isn’t exclusively a young man’s game."
The British actor and comic – who sought treatment for heroin and sex addiction in the past – thinks the 63-year-old ‘Good Will Hunting’ star, who hanged himself after trying to slash his left wrist yesterday (11.08.14), was "fizzing with divine madness," but was a "fragile" and "delicate" genius.
Paying tribute to the late star, whom he met once, in a column for the UK’s The Guardian newspaper, Russell wrote: "When someone gets to 63 I imagined, hoped, I suppose, that maturity would grant an immunity to adolescent notions of suicide but today I read that suicide isn’t exclusively a young man’s game. Robin Williams at 63 still hadn’t come to terms with being Robin Williams."
Russell believes that the tragedy suggests the late star was "obviously dealt with a pain that was impossible to render."
He wrote: "I feel bad now that I was unduly and unbefittingly snooty about that handful of his films that were adjudged unsophisticated and sentimental. He obviously dealt with a pain that was impossible to render and ultimately insurmountable, the sentimentality perhaps an accompaniment to his childlike brilliance."
He added: "We sort of accept that the price for that free-flowing, fast-paced, inexplicable comic genius is a counterweight of solitary misery. That there is an invisible inner economy that demands a high price for breathtaking talent. For me genius is defined by that irrationality; how can he talk like that? Play like that? Kick a ball like that? A talent that was not sculpted and schooled, educated and polished but bursts through the portal, raw and vulgar. Always mischievous, always on the brink of going wrong, dangerous and fun, like drugs."
Russell plans to remember Robin by watching some of his old movies and being nicer to people.
He revealed: "What I might do is watch ‘Mrs Doubtfire.’ Or ‘Dead Poets Society’ or ‘Good Will Hunting’ and I might be nice to people, mindful today how fragile we all are, how delicate we are, even when fizzing with divine madness that seems like it will never expire."
Russell Brand: Robin Williams was delicate
