MCT News Services

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – It may be surprising to some, but to Robin Williams comedy is serious business. “With comedy you realize how many great comics there are and how many people are affected by them,” says Williams, bearded and seated at a small table in a hotel here.

“Comedy is a great art, yeah, when it works. I’ve never seen anything funnier than Eddie Murphy in “The Nutty Professor’ – that scene around the dinner table. That alone would get an award if you want to go for sheer funny.”

People who pass out performance honors usually ignore the funny bone, says Williams, who earned an Academy Award for his serious role in “Good Will Hunting.”

“They’re talking about, “Well, is it meaningful?’ I think so if you had a great laugh and you come out of there going, “Man, I’m a human being. I laugh, I fart, I grab, I do things. I’m awkward, I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. I fall down. And it didn’t happen to me – it happened to HIM. I’m laughing at him.’ That’s all part of it.”

If Williams is known for his stream-of-consciousness wit and antic roles in “Mork & Mindy,” “Birdcage,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” he’s equally famous for his gravitas. In his latest film, “Night Listener,” he plays writer Armistead Maupin, who falls victim of a cruel hoax for six years. The story is true, which makes it even more frightening and more of a challenge for Williams.

Still, he hasn’t given up on comedy. “My dream is just to keep working,” says Williams, tapping the table with his forefinger. “Standup is part of the dream. I still do that. That’s later on when I go home this summer and take a little while off and then start going on the road again and working in clubs. I would like to take a little time. I’ve been doing a lot of movies.”

After all these years, standup comedy is still difficult, admits Williams, who turned 55 on Friday. “It feels good when it works and when it doesn’t work there’s nothing harder. There are times when it doesn’t work and you go, “OK, I learned that.’ But when it works, it’s kind of wonderful and if you really find new stuff, it’s great.”‘

Williams, who studied political science before he got into comedy, says he heard the calling while still in college. “I realized it was working pretty well when I was in my 20s. All of a sudden, I was starting to find a unique voice versus kind of a combination of other things. It was kind of interesting, there was a big benefit one night in San Francisco and I really started to have a good time and realized, “Hey this is ME. It’s not Jonathan Winters or anything. Everyone starts off being kind of someone else. I realized that’s how I’m wired. That’s what I do. I think I have a different perspective but hope to be finding things that other people can relate to – not be so “out’ there that it’s lost on other people.”

One of the ways he keeps in touch is to perform practice shows around Hollywood. “I don’t prepare, it’s fun. I like the interplay. I like improvising at a small theater on Franklin (Avenue) and have been having a good time doing that. I don’t want to cocoon myself. I think the idea is to keep yourself in the game, still hitting the ball, being out among people. Recently I felt like, “Where have I been?’ I found out about MySpace. And my son looked at me like, “You poor troubled man.’ You find out all different things from all different sources and that expands you.”

Williams is the father of three children: a 23-year-old son by his first marriage and a son, 14, and a daughter, 16, from his second. “The most fun about raising kids is watching them change. And the hardest part is watching them change. They’re growing exponentially. I do think that they’re growing emotionally quicker than they are emotionally,” he says.

“So they have this intellect. My daughter is 16, physically and emotionally, yet intellectually she’s somewhere in the 30s. She’s dealing with things and concepts – yet she’s still a girl, yet looks like a woman, yet she has a boyfriend and have they done it? I don’t know.

“She seems very sweet and kind and this boy seems sweet and kind. My other son is 14. He’s on all cylinders. That’s what’s interesting, also frightening. He’s fearless, which is great, and he’s fearless, which is scary.”

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)

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TLC’s show, “The Messengers,” pulls a new twist on the ol’ reality show. The goal of the program is to find the next great inspirational speaker, and the process is fascinating. How long has it been since you heard a Martin Luther King Jr., or a John Kennedy or a Billy Graham speak? One of the contestants on the show is Cornelious “See” Flowers, who has little reason to be inspired. His mother was shot in the head when he was 15. “I discovered her body March 28th. We spent the night in the house and didn’t know she had been murdered,” he says.

“We were children. I have a younger sister and a younger brother. We came home from a weekend at my stepfather’s house and we came home and just assumed she was in the bed sleeping … I can’t tell you what happened. The person who did it is still out there, and done it …”

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Kristen Bell, who stars in “Veronica Mars” on the new CW Network, is 26. But she says she doesn’t mind playing someone younger. “I love the fact that I look young. I love the fact that I think most people believe that I’m younger than I am. There’s certainly a part of me that yearns to play my age and a young woman that is having a lifestyle without her parents … That’s what really differentiates projects to me, whether or not their parents are characters. Like I can be playing a 19-year-old, but if it’s a film that I’m reading, I might like it more because the parents aren’t in the film … I love playing Veronica Mars, and as I do things outside of “Veronica Mars,’ I’ll probably try to grow up a little bit …”

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Jasmine Guy was one of the stars on the successful show, “A Different World,” which aired on NBC from 1987 to 1993. The show is having a reprise on TVLand. “One thing I was proud about in the creative aspect of the show is the variety of the cast and the variety of the kinds of people that went to Hillman (College) because up until then, we were used as tokens and there was a certain way you were supposed to act black,” she says.

“And this show had all different kinds of black people with all different kinds of backgrounds which say: we have a variety of kinds. We are not a “type.’ And our culture, I think, was brought more alive when (director) Debbie Allen joined the show in the second year.”

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(c) 2006, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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Robin Williams

AP-NY-07-24-06 1241EDT

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Exec hopes Latin Emmys will grow into big show

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AP Photos

NEW YORK (AP) – The president of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences said Monday he hopes the Latin Emmys are gaining enough steam to become a full-blown televised awards show.

During a news conference at City Hall to announce that the second annual Latin Emmys will be held in New York this fall, Peter Price said the goal is to build up the awards into a major production.

The Latin Emmys currently are not televised and give out awards to just six people. Other Emmy shows, like the Primetime and Daytime Emmys, feature more categories, and the awards are handed out during star-studded live broadcasts.

“We have been trying for a long time to organize a bigger, broader and deeper show,” Price said, “and I think given the lift we’ve gotten from the mayor and this city we should hope that is forthcoming.”

The first Latin Emmys were held in San Antonio, Texas, last year.

Price noted that there were just a handful of Spanish-language television networks in the U.S. a decade ago and now there are more than two dozen.

“This is probably the fastest-growing part of our industry,” he said.

One celebrity did join Price and Mayor Michael Bloomberg for Monday’s announcement: Andres Cantor, the soccer commentator whose signature booming voice is known worldwide.

“It is really important to acknowledge the accomplishments of television professionals who have contributed so much to Spanish-language television,” he said.

AP-ES-07-24-06 1750EDT