Jessica Chastain Grows Emotional On ‘The View’ Recalling Her Missed Opportunity To Thank Robin Williams: “I Always Regret It”
Jessica Chastain got teary on this morning’s episode of The View while discussing her special connection to the late Robin Williams. The actor, who was appearing on the talk show to promote her latest film, Memory, shared with the panel how Williams made it possible for her to first study acting as a student at Juilliard years ago.
As a recipient of the performing arts school’s Robin Williams Scholarship, Chastain said she was able to cover costs for her education, housing, and travel home to her family, among other expenses.
“Every year I wrote a note to him to say thank you, and I never got to meet him,” she explained to the table. But once, when she was in Los Angeles years ago, Chastain saw Williams at a restaurant.
The person she was dining with urged her to go up and greet Williams, but Chastain said she was “so shy” and wanted to wait until Williams was done eating.
“He ate [for] a couple minutes, then he jumped up and ran out of the restaurant, so he must have been late for something,” she recalled. “So I jumped up and went to run after him, and I stopped myself because I was like, ‘Ah, I don’t want to look like a crazy person, you know, attacking him or something.’”
She continued, “I always regret it. Because I never had the opportunity to say thank you in person.”
Williams died at age 63 in 2014.
Chastain said the experience inspired her to encourage anyone to come up and greet her in public, telling The View, “I tell people if they ever see me out in public or whatever and you want to come say hi, please come and say hi to me! Because it’s so important to me and … I wish I could have thanked him.”
Whoopi Goldberg offered assuring words to Chastain, who got teary-eyed at the end of her story. Goldberg told her guest, “As an actor, he loved actors, and he always wanted people to have the opportunities that maybe he wasn’t able to fulfill the way he wanted to, so I know that that was special to him.”The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.
