Move over, Siri and Alexa. Matthew Lawrence believes that his late Mrs. Doubtfire costar Robin Williams should be the next “voice of AI.”
The actor, who played one of the children nannied by Williams’ titular Mrs. Doubtfire in the 1993 comedy, tells Entertainment Weekly that he would love to use artificial intelligence to “do something really special” with the late comedian’s voice. Williams died by suicide at 63 in 2014.
“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 shares in EW’s Comic-Con video suite on Friday.
20th Century Fox Film Corp/Everett
“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. And it would be so cool.”
The idea came to Lawrence after watching one of Williams’ old commercials and realizing that it contained some interesting present-day parallels.
“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,” he explains. “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.’ So yeah, I would love to do that.”
David Livingston/Getty;Randy Holmes/Disney
The uses for the program are potentially endless, including having Williams become the helpful voice giving you driving directions on your phone. “It would be Robin!” Lawrence cheers. “It would be so cool. I’m telling you.”
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When speaking with EW in April, Lawrence explained that Williams taught him two really important life lessons during the film’s production: the “type of compassion you need to have for people,” and how you “don’t judge until you walk in someone else’s shoes.”
20th Century Fox
He continued, “He really quantified what it was to be a real artist for me in the sense that he was definitely, and I worked with some great people, and he was definitely the most brilliant artist I’ve ever worked with. But on top of that, he had the compassion, he had the humility, and he also had these things that he struggled with.”
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