Focus Features
After starting her career in front of the camera, Robin Williams' daughter opens up about directing her first feature, Lisa Frankenstein.
Zelda Williams is putting all those years spent on set with her father, the late Robin Williams, to good use: by directing a film of her own.
The 34-year-old actress-turned-director makes her feature film debut with the upcoming horror comedy Lisa Frankenstein, from a script by Diablo Cody about an '80s outcast who accidentally reanimates a bachelor from the Victorian age and sparks a trail of blood in the process.
Cody, who's also a producer on the film and has worked on movies including Juno, Jennifer's Body and Young Adult, praised William's work ethic, calling the zom-com "one of the most warm, welcoming and efficient sets I've ever seen" and Zelda herself a director devoid of "the usual first-film jitters."
Speaking with TooFab, Williams could easily pinpoint why she was so calm and comfortable on set.
"I mean, I've been on them my whole life," she said. "But I think also a lot of the guys that I grew up around, a lot of the directors dad worked with the most often, they run a very calm set."
"And that comes from preparation, but also just your energy informs a lot," she said, before praising her film's stars, Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse. "We were very lucky too. First and second on the call sheet can change the entire vibe of a set and both of these two are both consummate professionals and massive goofballs."
"So it made that energy really delightful and lovable and, you know, we laughed more often than anything else I think," she added.
As for why she decided this was the movie she wanted to have on IMDB as her feature film debut, Williams said it was a no-brainer after reading Cody's script.
"Very immediately when you read something that is this fleshed out and has all of this wondrous character development in it, even as a person who was acting back when, I would've loved to read this, but especially as a director, I just knew it was going to be such a vibrant world to approach," she told TooFab.
"And I fell madly in love with that creativity and the spoonful of sugar kind of fantasy elements to it," she added. "Those are the kind of adventures I want to go on as a director. So I think I wrote her back within 24 hours, I was like, 'Please!'"
Check out the video above to see what wound up on the cutting room floor, but will likely see the light of day in a gag reel.
Lisa Frankenstein hits theaters February 9th.
