-
1. Who plays Daniel Hillard?
Robin Williams
Williams produced the film with his wife Marsha as well as starring, and sat through hours of makeup each morning to become Doubtfire. The role won him a Golden Globe, and the makeup team, led by Greg Cannom, won the Oscar.
-
2. Who directed Mrs. Doubtfire?
Chris Columbus
Columbus came to it off the two Home Alone films and let Williams improvise take after take, printing the best. John Hughes is the tempting wrong answer because he wrote and produced Home Alone, but Columbus directed it.
-
3. Who plays Miranda Hillard?
Sally Field
Field already had two Oscars, for Norma Rae and Places in the Heart, and she was Tom Hanks's mother in Forrest Gump the following year. Miranda is an interior designer who has spent years cleaning up after Daniel's fun.
-
4. How many children do Daniel and Miranda have?
Three
Lydia, Chris and Natalie are played by Lisa Jakub, Matthew Lawrence and Mara Wilson, who went on to Matilda. The two older ones find out the truth when Chris catches the nanny standing up at the toilet, and they keep the secret from Natalie.
-
5. What is Daniel's usual line of work?
Voice acting
He walks out of a cartoon job in the opening scene rather than voice a parrot that smokes; the cartoon itself was animated by Chuck Jones. He ends up shipping boxes at a television station, where the boss catches him clowning with the dinosaur puppets.
-
6. What first name does Mrs. Doubtfire use?
Euphegenia
The surname comes from a newspaper headline Daniel spots while on the phone to Miranda, about police who doubt a fire was accidental. He has just called her as a string of appalling fake applicants so that the last voice she hears will sound like a godsend.
-
7. What nationality does the nanny claim?
Scottish
Daniel builds the persona around a Scottish accent, a cardigan, a wig and a full foam-latex face. The source novel, Anne Fine's Alias Madame Doubtfire, is English, and the film moved the whole story from Britain to San Francisco.
-
8. Who plays Miranda's new romantic interest, Stu?
Pierce Brosnan
Brosnan was two years away from his first Bond film, GoldenEye, and still best known for Remington Steele. Stu is an old flame of Miranda's with a pool, and the nanny beans him with a lime from across it, then describes it as a run-by fruiting.
-
9. Who helps Daniel create the makeup and disguise?
His brother Frank and Frank's partner Jack
Frank, a makeup artist played by Harvey Fierstein, and Jack, played by Scott Capurro, run through a montage of rejected looks before landing on the dowdy Scot. The face itself is a mask, which is why losing it later is such a disaster.
-
10. In which city is the film mainly set?
San Francisco
The Hillard house is a real Victorian on Steiner Street in Pacific Heights, and after Williams died in 2014 fans covered its steps in flowers. Daniel's shabby apartment, which the court liaison inspects, is across town.
-
11. What does Daniel put on his face when his mask is unavailable during a visit?
Cake frosting
The mask has blown out of the window and been run over by a truck just as the court liaison, Mrs. Sellner, arrives for an inspection. Daniel plunges his face into a cake and passes the frosting off as a beauty treatment, until it starts dripping into the tea.
-
12. What happens to part of Mrs. Doubtfire's costume while cooking?
It catches fire
The padded chest leans over a lit burner on the nanny's first night and goes up in flames, and Daniel beats it out with pan lids. He then orders dinner from a restaurant and passes it off as his own cooking, which goes down very well.
-
13. What restaurant hosts the chaotic double booking near the end?
Bridges
Bridges is a real restaurant in Danville, across the bay, and Daniel is booked there for Miranda's birthday dinner with Stu and a business dinner with his boss, Mr. Lundy, at the same time. He changes in the restroom so often that he mixes up his tables.
-
14. What allergy does Stu have?
Pepper
Daniel hears Stu send his order back for having pepper on it and later coats the plate in cayenne when nobody is looking. Stu chokes, the nanny performs the Heimlich maneuver, and the mask peels away in front of Miranda and the children.
-
15. What does Daniel eventually create around the Mrs. Doubtfire character?
A children's television show
Mr. Lundy gives him the station's afternoon slot after watching him improvise with the dinosaur puppets, and the children recognize the host at once. The final scene is the nanny on air, answering a letter from a girl whose parents are divorcing.
