Diehard Boston Red Sox fans Matt Damon and Ben Affleck did the unimaginable on Monday night, donning San Francisco Giants hats — all in the name of Robin Williams.
The duo was honored by Bring Change to Mind, a mental health nonprofit co-founded by Glenn Close, at the organization’s Revels & Revelations celebration in the Bay Area, where they received the Robin Williams Legacy of Laughter Award in recognition of their impact and the power of storytelling.
Damon and Affleck took the stage to accept their award with Giants hats in hand, in honor of Williams, who was a longtime fan of the team. “We should get this over with,” Damon teased as they put on the caps. “That’s the first time in 55 years and that’s for Robin.”
The actors starred opposite the late legend — who died by suicide at age 63 in 2014 — in 1997’s Good Will Hunting, which also earned Williams an Academy Award for best supporting actor. Damon told the crowd how he and Affleck spent their 20s trying to get the movie made, “and the moment that Robin read it and decided to do it, all of our problems went away. The studio had all these notes; it was this whole thing, and once Robin was like, ‘No, I like the script just as it is,’ they were like, ‘We think it’s great too!’ And that was it, and we just went and made the movie.”
Affleck continued that accepting the award was “just our way of saying thank you to Robin, who is the person that made the most meaningful impact on our professional lives, bar none, and without whom so many of the dreams we had may not have come true, certainly not in the way that they did. And also, I think it’s not coincidental that it’s a movie about a young guy struggling with mental health and needing to find someone with whom he could talk and feel safe. I think it’s really appropriate; he would be, I think, enormously proud and happy that this context is how he’s being honored.”
Williams’ children Zak, Zelda and Cody Williams, were on hand to present the award, with Close, Sarah Silverman, Chase Stokes and Chris Martin also taking part in the event. The evening raised $2.5 million while celebrating 15 years dedicated to starting conversations about mental health.