Los Angeles April 29 (IANS) Filmmaker Steven Spielberg credits late actor Robin Williams for helping him get through the "trauma" of filming "Schindler s List".
The "Lincoln" filmmaker and Williams became close after they worked together on 1991 s "Hook" and when Spielberg took on the emotional task of directing "Schindler s List" which was about German businessman Oskar Schindler who is credited with saving 1 200 Jews during the Holocaust Williams was there to comfort his friend by performing stand-up over the phone reports aceshowbiz.com.
"Robin called me " Spielberg said at the Tribeca Film Festival s 25th-anniversary screening of the film on Thursday.
"Robin knew what I was going through. Once a week he called me on schedule. He knew exactly what time it was in Poland what time it was in San Francisco... and he would do 15 minutes of stand-up on the phone and I would laugh hysterically because I had to release so much " said Spielberg.
"The way Robin is on the telephone he would always hang up on the loudest best laugh you d give him. He d never say goodbye just hang up on the biggest laugh " he added.
The emotionally-draining process of directing the movie paid off for Spielberg when he brought home Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director but he didn t feel like he could celebrate.
"That night wasn t really a celebration at all. I don t feel this movie is a celebration. The subject matter and the impact the film had on all of us... took sort of the celebration out of that " he said.
"It was wonderful to win but at the same time I just remember how moved I was when Branko Lustig our co-producer showed the world that he was in Auschwitz too and had numbers on his arms " he added.
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