For Minnie Driver, one of the best parts of Good Will Hunting with Robin Williams took place off-screen.
In an interview on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live that aired on Wednesday, the British actress reminisced about working with the actor, who died on Aug. 11 at age 63.
Williams, a standup comedian-turned-TV and movie star, received his first and only Oscar for his role as therapist Dr. Sean Maguire, while Driver garnered an Academy Award nod for her role as Skylar. Cast members Matt Damon, who played Maguire's client and the title character, a troubled genius, and Ben Affleck, who played his friend Chuckie, also received Academy Awards for co-writing the script of Good Will Hunting.
Host Andy Cohen asked Driver to talk about her best memory from her time filming the 1997 movie in Boston.
"Oh, it's sad now," she said, recalling watching the filming of a "beautiful," iconic scene in which Williams' character delivers an emotional and powerful monologue about life to Hunting while sitting beside him on a bench at Boston's Public Garden, overlooking a lagoon with swans and swan-decorated boats.
Then the magic continued.
"He did this amazing impromptu stand-up routine to all the people eating their sandwiches on the Common and people coming out of buildings because they heard that he was doing this," Driver said. "At the end of lunch, there were about 300 people."
Boston-area location manager Charlie Harrington, who worked with Williams on Good Will Hunting, recalled in an interview with local NPR station 90.9 WBUR how fans gathered to see the actor after learning he was in town.
"There was 100 people or more outside and he posed for pictures with everybody," Harrington said. "Everybody felt like they knew him because he was so approachable on the screen and his live performances."
Millions of fans, as well as Williams himself, list the bench scene as their favorite part of Good Will Hunting.
"Where we shot, and how we shot it…it was just the idea of that kind of beauty and the experiences you have," the actor told Boston Magazine in 2013. "Telling the kid, ‘If you don't get out and experience life, you're not going to have that stuff, you're not going to have anything. You have to pull your head out of your ass and experience this stuff.'"
After Williams' death, scores of fans flocked to Boston's Public Garden as well as to the house featured on Mork and Mindy, the 1970s sitcom that made him famous, to memorialize the actor, leaving flowers and messages (see photos). One person wrote on the bench, "My dad is Peter Pan?," quoting a line from another one of William's most popular and most loved films, Hook.
Williams battled depression, anxiety and Parkinson's disease before he took his own life. He was mourned by a slew of celebrities and is survived by wife Susan Schneider and three adult children, Zak Williams, Zelda Williams and Cody Williams.
Driver had told E! News days after the actor's death that she was "utterly shocked" by his passing, adding that he was "one of the funniest, best, loveliest people to be around."
(E! and Bravo are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)