Bowdoin College
04/18/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 04/18/2024 15:19
Davis Robinson Is a Full-time Theater Professor and Director—and a Part-time Movie Actor—Most Recently in ‘The Holdovers’
In 2020, during the pandemic, Professor of Theater Davis Robinson was willing to hole up, completely alone, in a Boston hotel room for nine days.
About a month before the film crew was scheduled to shoot, the casting agency for the production called him to see whether he could join the presidential cabinet.
"I said, 'Hmm, who's the president?'" Robinson said, recounting the story. "'And they said, 'Meryl Streep.' I said, 'Oh! So, it's a scene with Meryl Streep?' And they said, 'Yup. You would be a cabinet member; they need people to be in the White House.'"
There was, however, a caveat. "But here's the thing," they told him. "You have to isolate for nine days. We'll pay you $300 a day to sit in a hotel room. You'll have to order food in with non-touch delivery-there's to be no contact with anyone."
Robinson considered the proposition. The isolation period would take place during Bowdoin's January break, when he had to develop his course syllabus anyway. "And I get to be an extra, I get to be a cabinet member and see Meryl Streep, so I said yes."
The movie was Don't Look Up, a star-studded comedy directed by Adam McKay about an encroaching comet threatening to annihilate earth. (It's really a satire on climate change.) Streep plays a narcissistic president not tethered to reality, Jonah Hill is her goofball son, and Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence are two distressed astronomers trying to ward off the apocalypse.
What followed that day on the set in Boston was one of the most delightful, wacky, and inspiring experiences on a movie set that Robinson has had. Throughout his career as a theater director, actor, and professor, he has on occasion taken small film roles when his schedule allows it. His other film and TV credits include Mermaids, The Next Karate Kid, The Fighter,Julia (on episode four of the 2022 series), and most recently, The Holdovers.