Robin and the Vampires

I’ve often held the cult of celebrity in disdain. Why would you cry for someone you’ve never met? The wails for Princess Diana, tortured moans for Michael Jackson, what is that about? From people who seemed unmoved by wide scale famine or even genocide? I thought it was a little ridiculous. But then it happened to me. Robin Williams’ death cut a hole in me I didn’t expect. Watching him since I was a child, without me even realizing it, had had a profound effect. His vulnerability, humour and humanity had gotten under my skin.

I actually saw him several times around Vancouver – twice in one day even – but I didn’t know the man. Once we drove my girlfriend’s teen sister to the house where he was filming Jumanji. Robin emerged and smiled as he reached the sidewalk, pausing to say hello and then ‘remember to breathe’ to my hyper-ventilating future sister-in-law. I only knew what he projected to the world. And yet in roles like those in Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting and yes – even Mork and Mindy – Robin Williams spoke to many of us in a deeply personal way.

So I didn’t know Robin but Cory Leclerc did. Who is Cory Leclerc? He was a runner up in Race Face’s UFC comp years ago. He was invited to Rampage but he gave his spot to his teammate Darren Berrecloth who, at his first Rampage, didn’t have an invite. Cory now runs his C4 coaching business and he’s the team BC downhill coach. Cory also has his union card and has worked as a stunt rider in film and TV. Which is how he met Robin. Talking to Cory was a chance to relate to someone in the mountain bike community who actually knew Robin Williams, to find out what he was like in the flesh, when the cameras were off and there was no audience. I guess I had to talk to Cory. I needed to try and make sense of something that seemed so senseless. Thankfully Cory was willing to oblige.

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Cam McRae – How did you find yourself working with Robin Williams on the film ‘RV’ Cory?

Cory Leclerc – I got a call at a time when I was not doing much (laughs). A random call to do a ‘go see.’ Scott Ateah, a well-known stunt coordinator arranged it and basically the first meeting I ever went to was to meet Robin. They wanted me to stand near him to see if I fit the bill. That is what they call a ‘go see’.

Cam McRae – To check your stature, to be a believable stand in, but also being able to get along with him?

CL – I think that might have been it because everything went very unconventionally. I didn’t make a great impression because I came in flip flops and was told I was unprofessional but I riffed with Robin a bit. We hung out. That’s what they wanted. I knew he was into mountain biking because I’d heard from Tippie that he went into his local shop in San Francisco and bought all the Kranked films. Tippie figured he was going to be a movie star and Robin was going to be his big in. Old knowledge from Kranked 3 days, knowing he had seen those movies, was my ace in the hole. I did a couple of manuals and bunny hops and he looked at my bike and thought it was cool and we had some laughs. He thought I was cool. He remembered my name. But it seemed like he was like that. He cared about people. He was a nice guy. He was more open. Generally a celebrity of that stature… they are very closed off. They are escorted in and out by their people. He wasn’t like that.

CM – What sort of preconceptions did you have about him before you met him?

CL – I’m a huge fan of his dramatic work. Robin as a dramatic actor really appealed to me. When I saw him on a talk show he annoyed me. These guys are getting paid to go off. But after that where’s the off switch. The two sides of Robin Williams, what you see in his face and you see it in his acting. There was a little boy there. There was a very gracious, hands folded little boy there looking for approval. And he has that kind of sweet little boy face there when he wants it. That’s what I was interested in. Not the clown. My preconception was that I was not going to meet Robin Williams the clown when I met him. I was going to meet the gentle man. And that’s what it was. Very gracious and very interested in what I was saying. Maybe I wasn’t the perfect guy for the job. Maybe the stunt coordinators thought that Cory Leclerc was a little too loose. But maybe Robin and I hit it off. When you go see a celebrity like that, they will veto if they don’t want you.

CM – And you were his double for cycling. Was there a lot of riding in the movie?

CL – There’s a key plot point at the end of the movie. It’s almost like the crescendo scene. I wouldn’t say the climax but he’s separated from his family, after trying to get back with them. I had to ride this crazy bike. A scraper bike is almost what you’d call it. Sissy bars with the long seat. He’s got this kids’ bike at the top of the hill because he’s gone up to see the view and he points the bike straight down and rides through the woods and eventually catches up with his family.

CM – Not the sort of bike you’d want to ride in challenging terrain?

CL -It’s a 20” wheel scraper bike with 3 foot high sissy bars. I built 10 of those bikes. That was part of my job as well. I went and worked with the effects department and made those bikes so I could ride them. I ordered knobby bmx tires and removed coaster brakes and welded canti studs. And I had special solid steel bars bent and custom steel top caps on the bmx style stem and different forks that could accept a real stem and get rid of the goose neck. It was a 10 or 12 footer I had to jump off at the end of the shoot and there’s no way those three foot bars would have stayed in place.

CM – How many days were you on set?

CL – 10 days over two or three months. And a lot of time at the studio and building bikes. They basically employed me for a couple of months.

CM – Did you see Robin off set?

CL – Celebrities keep to themselves. They hang out in their trailer. But on one of the final shoot days we hung out in his trailer and play video games and he offered to give me the X Box game we were playing because he was done and I declined.  That would have been a cool memento. A silly little signed video game. I regret that, and the photographer told me to get back to him for a photo because Sony owned them and it would have been impossible to get them later – but of course I didn’t get back to him and that would be great to have wouldn’t it now? A photo of me with Robin.

CM – But you interacted with him throughout the day?

CL – Oh yeah. He was very gracious. But then he’d randomly start talking to people and start riffing on things and the whole movie grinds to a halt and waits for him to finish. And that’s what happens all day.

CM – And everyone listened and laughed?

CL – People aren’t always laughing though. Entertainers don’t always know when to and when not to. Imagine a singer just belting out verses randomly. People would find that annoying. Okay Celine, we know you can sing. Just because someone came by and said something about their house I don’t want you to sing three verses of ‘Our House’. You could see people tapping their toe. They’ve been there for twelve hours and maybe they wanted to get to their son’s little league game. But I’m Robin Williams so nobody will ever tell me to shut up. His wife would. (laughs). Which goes back to everyone wanting to keep him happy. So how does a guy like this slip through the cracks? Because he’s surrounded by yes men. Now me, I’m thinking, riff all day! I’m making more money than I’ve ever made in my life and every minute of overtime is like gold. In fact I’ll fire up that stove because I’m on OT and when this shoot is over other people are employed and I’m not. So riff on my brother! Every joke is like eight bucks

CM – Everyone wants to keep him happy.

CL – If you keep him happy you keep him working. Keep the cow producing milk. What happens at the end? The cow falls over and dies. The vampires sucked all his fucking life out of him.

CM – But somehow, despite the vampires, he wasn’t bitter?

CL – He was very entertaining and generous to the crew. He was legendary for his generosity. There’s nothing but stories about him taking the time to send a video to someone or stop in a hospital and cheer somebody up as he was walking by. There’s an endless supply of stories about what a gracious person he was. And there’s that little boy seeking approval again.

CM – Was Robin a mountain biker?

CL – Robin was known to be an avid roadie who did some cross country mountain biking.

CM – But he was interested in the Kranked movies. More as entertainment than something he wanted to pursue.

CL – But he couldn’t do that. Those people are contracted and insured up the ass. They own you. Studios own you. If you are contracted to do five movies over the next few years there’s no way you’re allowed to go mountain biking. You would get sued.

CM – Did you spend enough time together to figure out some points of connection between you?

CL – When I went into his trailer. His trailer was not a happy place to be. He had a couple of dogs. And it’s a big comfortable trailer but it was quite messy and it didn’t seem very clean. It reeked of dog shit and piss. When people are depressed they go into their hole. People weren’t coming in and saying “come on Robin, you are a top celebrity. You can’t have a trailer that smells like dog shit.” When I walked into Robin Williams’ personal space I felt very uncomfortable. Like I shouldn’t be there. Did he invite me in there because he thought I would be the type of person who would appreciate that sort of space and not judge him? Because he could see himself in me? I don’t know, but I don’t think that he invited everyone in there. I didn’t see him hanging out with a lot of people. And when I was in there he wasn’t Robin Williams. He was playing video games. He was hiding. We didn’t have a great conversation. We didn’t sit across the kitchen table and have coffee. He needed to hide in that cocoon for a while so he could regather his energy to have it sucked from him by the vampires. And that’s what his job entailed.

CM – And you related to that?

CL – For me riding bikes is what gives me the coping skills to, after an intense race weekend coaching, go back and give. And if Robin Williams was an avid cyclist and loved cycling as much as it seemed and… over years, it’s not a secret that Robin Williams was a guy who loved riding his fucking bike. Robin was no different than me, and others like me within this culture. What the world draws out of us, we seem to find the ability to put it back through riding bikes. I don’t know what it is. Is it the slow, grinding meditational component of climbing, is it the poignancy of just being in the woods? Whatever all of us riders have with mountain biking that helps us rekindle our spirit and have us go back to face challenges, Robin Williams had it too.

CM – How did it happen that you found out Robin wanted to meet Wade Simmons?

CL – Well I brought it up. I connected the dots and obviously I wanted to impress Robin Williams. We were shooting in Calgary most of the time in Kananaskis Park, but the woods stuff was all shot on Mount Seymour, off the Hangman corner. The majority of the riding was on Perimeter trail. That day we were in there and that was the final day for me on set and it was the final opportunity and Wade was in town and I called him up and said I’m gonna need to you to come up here today.

CM – And how did he respond?

He was like, “what are you talking about” in typical Wade style. I was like “whatever Wade, just get up here and bring a poster.” So Wade says “no way, he won’t want a poster.” So I said “just get up here and bring a poster.” Later I whispered in Robin’s ear. It’s hard to get them alone and if you get them alone you’ve got to be really careful because sometimes the movie star wants to talk to you and sometimes the movie star doesn’t want to talk to you – and if you guess wrong you’re gone. But we were at the end of the shoot and it was casual so I said, “hey, do you want me to ask Wade to come up here today?” And he actually said “whoa! Really?” And he got super excited. Eventually Wade rolled up and was standing at the back but we were in the middle of something. It was not a good time. But I whispered in his ear “Wade Simmons is here.” We were in the middle of some stunt and everyone was all stressed but he ran. He dropped the bike and ran across the crash pad and through the crowd of people and I ran with him because I had to do the introduction. And Wade didn’t get excited or anything. He was respectful but not excited. The short story is that Robin Williams was way more excited to meet Wade Simmons than Wade Simmons was to meet Robin Williams.

CM – And what about the poster?

CL – Wade did have the poster but he didn’t bring it out so I said, “hey Robin, I got him to bring you a poster. Do you want him to sign it?” And Robin was like “yeah, yeah yeah!” He was super excited and he got his assistant to get a Sharpie and then after Wade signed asked her to have it framed, like now. And there was a spot, he mentioned a spot in the house where he had been meaning to put something and he said “put it there.”  Wade had to go and we had to get back to work and they high fived and that was that. That day Robin actually did a bunch of his own stunts and he rode pretty well. I was actually impressed with his riding skill that day.

CM – His death affected me in a way I didn’t anticipate. I felt a personal loss that I can hardly explain. And I had the man say hello to me one time only. How did it affect you?

CL – It actually probably hit me harder than any death that I’ve ever heard of. There was a story last year about Amanda Todd, that really, really affected me, and this really affected me. A very small factor is because I met him personally. It’s really about the fact that I was aware of what kind of person he was when I met him. Meeting him only confirmed, being in the trailer and seeing that was a bit of a dark place, seeing that he really didn’t have the ability to know when or when not to.

So what we can hope is that if someone of Robin Williams’ fame can be pushed over the edge, people will start to ask how. How could this person who has what almost everyone in the world could only dream of, just check out? It just doesn’t make sense. But it makes sense to me because I saw it the whole time because depression, bipolar disorder, untreated ADD, the statistics aren’t good. The end result isn’t success in a lot of cases. It shows that it’s often not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Robin Williams now, he was 63 years old. Why did he wait until 63. Why not 59, why not 65. He fought that monster probably from the day he was born. Why at 63 did he finally check out. Did he achieve everything he thought he would achieve in his life? And then he was hopeless because, where do you go from there? Was it the onset of Parkinson’s, the fear of deteriorating in the public eye? What is the truth? Was it fallout from coming off medication?

Why, why, why? What finally pushed you over Robin? What was it? Could someone have said something to fix it? Maybe not. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. So the simple answer is? How did it affect me? Quite deeply. That’s your short answer.  And it forced me into a lot of self reflection. To re-evaluate how I’m going to deal with myself going forward. And also to look around me and to ask others to look around them.

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O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done