Robin Williams’ on-screen daughter Lisa Jakub recently recalled the lengths her late co-star took to support her as she struggled to balance her school work and career as a child actor.
The 42-year-old “retired actor” starred as Williams and Sally Field’s eldest daughter Lydia in the beloved 1993 comedy Mrs Doubtfire when she was just 14.
“One day on set,” Jakub told Yahoo Entertainment, “I was very upset, because I had received this letter from my high school saying that it was too difficult for them to work long-distance with me and that I just shouldn’t come back to high school.”
“And I was really upset about that, and Robin, just being perceptive and kindhearted, reached out and was like, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ I told him what happened, and he wrote a letter to my school asking them to please reconsider. Would they work with me in trying to balance my education and my career? And he didn’t think that that was fair.”
Despite framing the letter to hang in the principal’s office, the school did not grant William’ request.
Jakub shared the letter on her blog following Williams’ devastating death in August 2014 at the age of 63.
But what I love about that story and what I love about Robin, it’s just the fact that he would do that for someone, that he would go out of his way, that he would take the time to realize that this would be important. And even if it didn’t work, somebody needed to stand up, and he did that for me.
I don’t know if he ever knew how massive that was and how much I felt like he was in my corner. And how much that really shifted things for me and made me think about, ‘What is the impact I wanna make in the world?’
Jakub now works as a mental wellness coach and has written several books, including: Not Just Me: Anxiety, Depression, and Learning to Embrace Your Weird; You Look Like That Girl… A Child Actor Stops Pretending and Finally Grows Up; and (Don’t) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start the Conversation About Mental Health.
More than two decades before Williams died by suicide, he spoke openly with Jakub about his issues with anxiety and depression.
“I was able to share with him that anxiety was something that I struggled with, and he would talk to me about mental health issues in a way that 14-year-olds aren’t usually used to adults being really open about those sorts of personal experiences with them.
Jakub describes her work leading mental wellness workshops as “one of the ways I’m kind of paying forward some of the things that Robin taught me by being so open.”
Read more: These Deleted Scenes From Mrs Doubtfire Will Break Your Heart
