by Speaking exclusively to Time Extension, Julien Seri, the director of the famous The Legend of Zelda ad campaign featuring Robin Williams and his daughter, Zelda, has shared his memories of what it was like working with the legendary comedian.
Since the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was announced for Nintendo Switch 2, like many, I've found myself occasionally drifting back to the series of marketing ads for the 2011 3DS remake.
It's been over 15 years now since the first of these commercials aired, and I still don't think there's been a piece of Nintendo marketing that has tugged on the heartstrings quite as effectively as that campaign, so I wanted to speak to someone involved with the ad to find out a little more about its creation. This led me to reach out to Seri, the French director tasked with realising the vision set out by the team at Nintendo of America, most notably Gabriel Moskowski (who Seri says originally conceived the idea and helped get Williams on board).
In case you're somehow unaware, the genesis of this series of ads stems from a famous story involving Williams naming his daughter Zelda (born in 1989) after the character Princess Zelda from the original NES game. This anecdote first came to light in the early '90s and inevitably reached Nintendo of America, which approached Williams and his daughter decades later to front the campaign for the 3DS remake.
"From what I’ve been told, they were playing Zelda when my mum was pregnant with me," Zelda Williams said in an interview with Nintendo back in 2011. "I think both my parents really liked the name, and it just stuck."
"I bought one of the first Nintendo systems and brought that home with a very large TV," Robin Williams remembered in the same video. "It was amazing. I was playing it for hours and hours and hours and hours. A lot of people come up and say, ‘Is she named after F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife? No, it’s Zelda, for The Legend of Zelda.”
According to Seri, prior to this campaign, he had already worked extensively with Nintendo in the past on commercials, so they knew his work, but had never met Robin Williams before. Regardless, Williams was reportedly the one who hand-selected him for the job, having been sent a list of directors and their work to consider for the director's chair:
"Several director’s reels were sent to Robin, and he chose mine. I never fully knew what he had seen in it or exactly why he selected me, but it was one of those unexpected gifts life gives you.
I was familiar with the world of The Legend of Zelda, and I understood how important the franchise was. What made the first film especially meaningful, however, was Robin’s deeply personal connection to it. The idea was built around the fact that he had named his daughter Zelda after the game, which he genuinely loved. It was never merely a celebrity endorsement. There was a real emotional truth at the heart of the campaign.
Despite having never met before, Seri describes Williams as being a dream to work with, even receiving the affectionate nickname from him when the cameras were rolling:
"From the moment we began working together, he made the relationship very easy. He spoke excellent French, was generous, relaxed and remarkably easy to direct. He used to call me 'Boss,' which always made me smile and says a great deal about the warmth and playfulness we developed on set.
The campaign was shot in three separate production blocks over approximately six months, always arranged around Robin’s availability. In total, we had six shooting days. We filmed in both New York and San Francisco, where Robin lived. The first film itself was shot remarkably quickly, in approximately an hour and a half, while the broader campaign was completed across the subsequent shooting blocks.
Robin had a beard in the earlier films because he was performing in a Broadway production at the time, in which he played a tiger. As with any production involving an actor of his stature and schedule, we had to work around his availability and the continuity requirements of his stage role.
Their spontaneity, humour and natural father-daughter chemistry often brought something unexpected, genuine and alive to the scenes. Robin’s comic instinct was extraordinary, while Zelda had a wonderful, natural presence."
As Seri states, the first ad was "intentionally more intimate and emotional, because it was rooted in the real story of Robin naming his daughter Zelda after the game," but following that, the later commercials "moved toward a warmer, more feel-good and more comedic tone," which he described as "a natural evolution".
Important to note is that Seri's collaborations with the Williamses didn't stop at the Ocarina of Time 3DS advert, with the director also being responsible for the Four Swords Adventures 3DS and Skyward Sword commercials, and also being in discussions to shoot another project with Robin in the future.
"Our collaboration became meaningful beyond the Nintendo campaign. Afterwards, we were preparing to make Love Run, which was intended to be my fourth feature film. Robin was attached to the project, but for production reasons we had to postpone the shoot by a year.
What stayed with me was that Robin remained genuinely committed and encouraging. He would say, 'We’ll shoot it next year, Boss.' He was still present in the project, still motivated, and that meant a great deal to me."
Tragically, the latter would never come to pass, with Williams passing away in 2014 at the age of 63.
"The following summer, I was directing another independent film. On the first day of shooting, during a particularly charged scene, my first assistant told me of Robin’s death. It was an overwhelming moment, and one that remains permanently etched in my memory.
I remember him as I knew him: a remarkably talented, generous and funny man, a deeply engaged collaborator, and someone whose warmth made every day on set feel easier."
In closing, Seri told me:
"The work we shared on the Nintendo films, and the prospect of making Love Run together, remain among the most meaningful experiences of my career."