Matt Damon and Ben Affleck Say Robin Williams Made ‘All of Our Problems Go Away’ in Touching Tribute

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are looking back on their time with late actor Robin Williams.

The longtime friends and collaborators were honored on Monday, April 27, with the Robin Williams Legacy of Laughter Award by Bring Change to Mind, an organization dedicated to the importance of mental health cofounded by Glenn Close.

At their Revels & Revelations event held this week in San Francisco, Damon, 55, and Affleck, 53, paid tribute to their late Good Will Hunting costar — who died by suicide on August 11, 2014, at age 63 — in their acceptance speech.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Damon said that he and Affleck spent their 20s trying to get the movie, which they wrote and won the Best Screenplay Oscar for, made.

“The moment that Robin read it and decided to do it, all of our problems went away,” Damon said, per THR.

“The studio had all these notes; it was this whole thing, and once Robin was like, ‘No, I like the script just as it is,’ they were like, ‘We think it’s great too!’” he continued. “And that was it, and we just went and made the movie.”

Williams, who played therapist and professor Dr. Sean Maguire, also won an Academy Award for his critically acclaimed performance.

Affleck added, per THR, that accepting the Robin Williams Legacy of Laughter Award was “just our way of saying thank you to Robin, who is the person that made the most meaningful impact on our professional lives, bar none, and without whom so many of the dreams we had may not have come true, certainly not in the way that they did.”

“And also, I think it’s not coincidental that it’s a movie about a young guy struggling with mental health and needing to find someone with whom he could talk and feel safe,” he added. “I think it’s really appropriate; he would be, I think, enormously proud and happy that this context is how he’s being honored.”

According to THR, Williams’ children Zak, Zelda and Cody Williams presented the award.

The 1997 drama film was nominated for a total of nine awards at the 70th Academy Awards.

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