Sally Field reveals what drove Robin Williams 'crazy' during Mrs Doubtfire

No matter what he did Sally Field refused to break character. Photo / Getty Images

SALLY Field has opened up to Lisa Wilkinson about the one thing that drove Robin Williams "absolutely crazy" on the set of Mrs Doubtfire.

In an interview set to air on The Project tonight, Field recalls what it was like working with the comic genius on the 1993 movie.

"It was insane and it was so fun," Field says.

The actress, 71, describes Williams as "a deeply good man" but says he was "exhausting".

"He had endless energy," Field says. "And he'd want to do take after take after take because every take he would want to do something different.

"But what drove him absolutely crazy is that he could never make me laugh. He would never break me up."

Field says Williams pulled out all the stops to try and make her laugh in the middle of a scene, but she was a pro.

"I would stay completely in character and Robin would do anything," she says. "He was like (blowing) and nothing … I'm just not going to do it."

Robin Williams and Sally Field. Photo / Getty Images

In The Project interview, Field also speaks about her new memoir, In Pieces, in which she writes about being sexually abused by her stepfather.

"Your stepfather did let you down in the worst possible way," Wilkinson says. "How difficult has it been to write about what he did to you?"

"Hugely emotional, because reliving what my childhood was with my stepfather is hugely complicated and emotional," Field says. "Because he was so loveable at the same time that he was threatening."

In her memoir, which is out now, Field writes that when she was 14 years old, her stepfather, stuntman Jock "Jocko" Mahoney, called her into his bedroom alone.

"I knew … I felt both a child, helpless, and not a child. Powerful. This was power. And I owned it. But I wanted to be a child — and yet."