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Matthew Lawrence wants to resurrect Robin Williams with a modern-day twist.
Lawrence, 45, told Entertainment Weekly at San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend that he wants his “Mrs. Doubtfire” co-star — who died by suicide at age 63 in 2014 — to become the new “voice of AI.”
“I would love — now, obviously, with the respect and with the okay from his family — but I would love to do something really special with his voice because I know for a generation, that voice is just so iconic,” Lawrence said.
“It’s not just the fact that I knew him and worked with him and so it’s in my head — it’s in everybody’s head,” the actor added. “And it would be so cool.”
The idea, according to Lawrence, recently came to him when he was watching an old television commercial with Williams’ voice.
“It’s kinda like this very contemporary, modern, almost sort of foreshadowing of what’s going on commercial that he did, where he did this computerized voiceover,” Lawrence explained. “And it always stuck with me.”
“And then, during his passing, with the AI coming out, I’m like, ‘Man, he’s gotta be the voice of A.I. He’s gotta be the voice in something,'” the “Boy Meets World” star continued. “So yeah, I would love to do that.”
Lawrence added that there’s endless possibilities with using Williams’ voice as AI, including for navigation on cellphones.
“It would be Robin!” Lawrence happily stated. “It would be so cool. I’m telling you.”
During the SAG-AFTRA strike in Oct. 2023, Williams’ daughter, Zelda Williams, put out a statement slamming the use of AI to recreate the late comedian.
“I am not an impartial voice in SAG’s fight against AI,” Zelda, 35, wrote on social media. “I’ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad.”
“I’ve already heard AI used to get his ‘voice’ to say whatever people want and while I find it personally disturbing, the ramifications go far beyond my own feelings,” Zelda continued. “Living actors deserve a chance to create characters with their choices, to voice cartoons, to put their HUMAN effort and time into the pursuit of performance.”
Lawrence was a preteen when he played Williams’ son, Chris Hillard, in 1993’s “Mrs. Doubtfire.”
At the first annual ’90s Con in 2022, Lawrence recalled how Williams — who struggled with substance abuse before his death — warned him to “stay away” from drugs while they were shooting the film together.
“[Williams] was very serious. He was like, ‘You know when you come to my trailer and you see me like that?’” Lawrence shared. “He’s like, ‘That’s the reason why. And now I’m fighting for the rest of my life because I spent 10 years doing something very stupid every day. Do not do it.’ I stayed away from it because of him.”
In April, Lawrence told EW that the “Jumaji” star also gave him two important life lessons: the “type of compassion you need to have for people” and how you “don’t judge until you walk in someone else’s shoes.”
“He really quantified what it was to be a real artist for me in the sense that he was definitely,” Lawrence said, “and I worked with some great people, and he was definitely the most brilliant artist I’ve ever worked with.”
English (US)