How Robin Williams Helped Steven Spielberg Get Through Schindler’s List; The late comedian would do stand-up over the phone to lighten the director’s mood as he shot his Holocaust epic.

Making the 1993 drama Schindler’s List was traumatic for Steven Spielberg—but the director could always count on Robin Williams to make him laugh. At a 25th anniversary screening and panel about the film at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Oscar winner warmly reminisced about the late comedian, whom Spielberg befriended during the making of Hook, released two years before the Holocaust epic. Williams, Spielberg said, was keenly aware of the toll Schindler’s was about to take on his friend—so he made it a habit to regularly call Spielberg and cheer him up during the brutal shoot in Poland.

“Robin knew what I was going through,” Spielberg said. The comedian would call him once a week, always at the same time. “He would do 15 minutes of stand-up on the phone. I would laugh hysterically . . . he’d always hang up on you on the loudest, best laugh you’d give him. Drops the mic, that’s it.”

Stories about Williams’s phone calls have long been part of the lore of Schindler’s List, which was represented at the Tribeca panel by Spielberg, Sir Ben Kingsley,Liam Neeson, Embeth Davidtz, and Caroline Goodall, and moderated by Janet Maslin of The New York Times.

Back in 2014, Williams himself confirmed rumors of the calls while answering a fan question during a Reddit A.M.A.

“I think I only called him once, maybe twice,” Williams said. “I called him when I was representing People for the Valdheimers Association. A society devoted to helping raise money to help older Germans who had forgotten everything before 1945. I remember him laughing and going ‘thank you.’”

Williams wasn’t the only one helping Spielberg get through the making of Schindler’s, though. During the panel, Spielberg noted that the cast and crew also “watched a lot of Saturday Night Live” to wind down after grueling days on set. At the time, Spielberg also had to make time to approve finishing touches on Jurassic Park, a film he shot earlier in the year. But watching footage of giant dinosaurs didn’t provide the same relief or distraction as a stand-up set from Williams. Spielberg actually came to resent the film—in the moment, anyway, when compared to the dramatic work he was currently doing.

Schindler’s List, a devastating retelling of the Holocaust and the heroic life of Oskar Schindler, was so realistic that it had a strong psychological impact on the filmmaker, as well as its cast. While shooting the scene where the female characters are marched into what turns out to be an actual shower—though they believe it will be a gas chamber—two actresses had breakdowns, and couldn’t resume filming for days afterward, Spielberg recalled. The director also cited the horrifying health-action scene, in which the characters had to strip naked and be judged by Nazi doctors, as “probably the most traumatic day of my entire career.”

“There was trauma everywhere,” Spielberg said. “And we captured the trauma. You can’t fake that.”

There was also trauma behind the scenes, the director said. Spielberg remembered seeing fresh swastikas painted on building walls along the cast and crew’s route to work, and an older Polish woman who happened to live nearby telling Ralph Fiennes, who was dressed in his character’s Nazi uniform, that she missed the days when the actual Nazi soldiers were “protecting” the community. The cast also recalled the night when an anti-Semitic German businessman went up to actor Michael Schneider at a bar and asked him if he was Jewish.

“Michael, in shock, said yes,” Kingsley remembered. The man then “mimed a noose around his neck . . . and pulled it tight. And I stood up.”

“You did more than stand up,” Spielberg said, noting that Kingsley actually “took him right to the ground.”

In stark contrast to that swirling cruelty, Neeson, who played the title role, recalled the times he and Kingsley would wait up for some of their Jewish cast members after particularly arduous days, doling out hugs and free drinks. “Those were lovely evenings,” he said.

After its release, Schindler’s List would go on to win seven Oscars, including best picture and best director. Spielberg later set up the U.S.C. Shoah Foundation, a nonprofit that has recorded thousands of stories of Holocaust survivors. At the screening, the filmmaker actually sat down to watch his film with an audience for the first time in years, and said he came away feeling immense pride at his achievement. Goodall, who marveled at the film’s beauty all these years later, perhaps said it best: “Every scene was a tiny masterpiece.”

In emotional reunion, Spielberg revisits ‘Schindler’s List’

Spielberg, Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and others reunited for a 25th anniversary screening of “Schindler’s List” at the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday, in an evening that had obvious meaning to Spielberg and the hushed, awed crowd that packed New York’s Beacon Theater. In a Q&A following the film, Spielberg said it was the first time he had watched “Schindler’s List” with an audience since it was released in 1993.

“I have never felt since ‘Schindler’s List’ the kind of pride and satisfaction and sense of real, meaningful accomplishment — I haven’t felt that in any film post-‘Schindler’s List,’” Spielberg said.

The reunion was a chance for Spielberg and the cast to reflect on the singular experience of making an acknowledged masterwork that time has done little to dull the horror of, nor its necessity. “It feels like five years ago,” Spielberg said of making the film.

Spielberg shot the film in Krakow, Poland, in black-and-white and without storyboards, instead often using hand-held cameras to create a more documentary-like realism. Neeson remembered Spielberg running with a camera and, on the fly, directing him and Kingsley down Krakow streets. “It was exciting. It was dangerous and unforgettable,” Neeson said.

“Schindler’s List,” made for just $22 million (Spielberg declined a pay check), grossed $321 million worldwide and won seven Academy Awards, including best picture and best director. 

It also did much to educate the American public on the Holocaust. After the film, Spielberg established the Shoah Foundation, which took the testimony of 52,000 Holocaust survivors.

More needs to be done for Holocaust education, Spielberg said: “It’s not a pre-requisite to graduate high school, as it should be. It should be part of the social science, social studies curriculum in every public high school in this country.”

Making “Schindler’s List” was a profound, emotional and fraught experience for many of those involved. Kingsley recalled confronting a man for anti-Semitism during production. Spielberg said swastikas were sometimes painted overnight. Recreating scenes like those in the Krakow ghetto and at Auschwitz were, Spielberg said, very difficult for most of those involved. Two young Israeli actors, he said, had breakdowns after shooting a shower scene at the concentration camp.

“That aesthetic distance we always talk about between audience and experience? That was gone. And that was trauma,” said Spielberg. “There was trauma everywhere. And we captured the trauma. You can’t fake that. (The scene) where everyone takes off their clothes was probably the most traumatic day of my entire career — having to see what it meant to strip down to nothing and then completely imagine this could be your last day on earth.

“There were whole sections that go beyond anything I’ve ever experienced or seen people in front of the camera experience,” the 71-year-old filmmaker added.

Spielberg actually released two movies in 1993. “Jurassic Park” came out in June, and “Schindler’s List” followed in November. While he was shooting in Poland, Spielberg made several weekly satellite phone calls with the special effects house Industrial Light & Magic to go over Tyrannosaurus Rex shots — a distraction he abhorred.

“It built a tremendous amount of anger and resentment that I had to do this, that I actually had to go from what you experienced to dinosaurs chasing jeeps,” Spielberg told the audience. “I was very grateful later in June, though. But until then, it was a burden. This was all I cared about.”

“Schindler’s List” was a redefining film for Spielberg, who up until then was mostly considered an “entertainer,” associated with fantasy and escapism. Since, he has largely gravitated toward more dramatic and historical material like “Amistad,” ″Saving Private Ryan,” ″Munich,” ″Lincoln” and last year’s “The Post.”

But Spielberg initially shied away from “Schindler’s List,” scripted by Steven Zaillian and 

based on Thomas Keneally’s novel “Schindler’s Ark.” He urged Roman Polanski, whose mother was killed at Auschwitz, to make it. Martin Scorsese was once attached to direct.

Yet the making of “Schindler’s List” prompted an awakening for Spielberg, who has said his “Jewish life came pouring back into my heart.” On Thursday, the director said he wanted to make the film about “the banality of the deepest evil” and “stay on the march to murder, itself.”

To keep his sanity while shooting in Poland, he watched “Saturday Night Live” on Betamax and relied on weekly calls from Robin Williams.

“He would call me on schedule and he would do 15 minutes of stand-up on the phone,” said Spielberg. “I would laugh hysterically because I had to release so much. But the way Robin is on the telephone, he would always hang up on you on the loudest, best laugh you’d give him.”

Shmoozing With Spielberg

60 Minutes interviews Steven Spielberg, and finds out, among other things, how he dealt with antisemitism growing up.

The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive - Israel in Action

The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive - Israel Reborn

Steven Spielberg shortly after he made Schindler's List

Steven Spielberg D'var Torah on Shema Yisrael

The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive - Built in a Day; Religious pioneers establish Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi, a tower and stockade settlement.

Steven Spielberg was target of Arab League boycott, WikiLeaks cable shows Leaked dispatch reveals diplomats from 14 Arab states voted to ban the director's films in response to his donation to Israel

Steven Spielberg was blacklisted by the Arab League's Central Boycott Office after making a $1m (£570,000) donation to Israel during the 2006 conflict in Lebanon.

A US embassy memo released by WikiLeaks reveals that during a meeting of the group in April 2007, diplomats or representatives from 14 Arab states voted to ban all films and other products related to Spielberg or his Righteous Persons Foundation.

At the confidential US briefing, the head of the Syrian regional office for the boycott of Israel, Muhammad al-Ajami, said that Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen had agreed to ban all Spielberg's works.

Malaysia, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia were also present at the meeting and voted in favour of the boycott. The memo from the US embassy in Damascus to Washington says that "they and other countries will likely implement their own bans" similar to that adopted by the Arab states.

At the same meeting, cosmetics giant Estée Lauder was added to the blacklist while financial services behemoth Merrill Lynch was placed on a "watchlist".

The only Arab states which did not attend the meeting were those who have signed separate peace accords with Israel, namely, Egypt (which also has a thriving film industry and holds the annual Cairo film festival), Mauritania and Jordan. Djibouti and Somalia were not present at the meeting either.

Marvin Levy, spokesman for Steven Spielberg, said: "While we can't comment on a leaked cable, we know that the films and DVDs have been sold globally in the normal distribution through all this time."

But Chris Doyle at the Council for Arab-British Understanding said the boycott was an "understandable" reaction to Spielberg's donation.

"It would be consistent with other decisions in the past over boycotting both companies and people who have done something equivalent," he said. "The donation would have been seen as hypocritical, given the ethical stance Steven Spielberg has taken on other issues including Darfur, and would have caused a lot of anger.

"The depiction of Arabs in Raiders of the Lost Ark was very poor, cartoon-like and full of the usual stereotypes," he added. "In a broader context, this applies to so many Hollywood films where Arabs for decades have been ludicrously depicted."

The Arab League boycott is a systematic, pro-Palestinian effort by Arab League member states to economically isolate Israel and weaken the country's economic and military strength.

Israeli boycotts by the League are, however, inconsistently enforced across the member states, with individual states often going their own way. Only Lebanon and Syria now adhere to it stringently.

Steven Spielberg set up the Righteous Persons Foundation in 1994. Using his personal profits from the film Schindler's List and, later, Munich, the Foundation is dedicated to helping create a strong Jewish community in the United States.

Schindler's List - Jerusalem of Gold

Schindler's List is a 1993 American drama film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand Polish Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.

The film was a box office success and recipient of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Score, as well as numerous other awards. In 2007, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked the film 8th on its list of the 100 best American films of all time (up one position from its 9th place listing on the 1998 list).