{
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "NewsArticle",
    "@id": "https://badiyaa.com/birdcage-30-robin-williams-nathan-lane/#article",
    "mainEntityOfPage": "https://badiyaa.com/birdcage-30-robin-williams-nathan-lane/",
    "headline": "The Birdcage at 30: Robin Williams was first pictured as Albert before Nathan Lane got the part",
    "description": "The Birdcage turns 30: Mike Nichols first pictured Robin Williams as Albert, but Williams chose Armand and Nathan Lane took the drag-star role.",
    "datePublished": "2026-11-13T15:24:00+00:00",
    "dateModified": "2026-11-13T15:24:00+00:00",
    "author": {
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Badiyaa Editorial Desk",
        "url": "https://badiyaa.com/author/editorial-desk/"
    },
    "publisher": {
        "@type": "NewsMediaOrganization",
        "@id": "https://badiyaa.com/#organization",
        "name": "Badiyaa",
        "url": "https://badiyaa.com/",
        "logo": {
            "@type": "ImageObject",
            "url": "https://badiyaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/badiyaa-logo-color-600x60-1.png",
            "width": 600,
            "height": 60
        },
        "email": "badiyaavideo@gmail.com",
        "publishingPrinciples": "https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/",
        "correctionsPolicy": "https://badiyaa.com/corrections/",
        "actionableFeedbackPolicy": "https://badiyaa.com/contact/",
        "ownershipFundingInfo": "https://badiyaa.com/about/#ownership",
        "sameAs": [
            "https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61595518283625",
            "https://www.instagram.com/badiyaa.com.ai/",
            "https://www.threads.net/@badiyaa.com.ai"
        ],
        "parentOrganization": {
            "@type": "Organization",
            "name": "Rezilient Digital",
            "url": "https://www.rezilientdigital.com/",
            "address": {
                "@type": "PostalAddress",
                "streetAddress": "Fl No 3, Nav Shyam Sadan, Plot No 38, Pestom Sagar, Chembur",
                "addressLocality": "Mumbai",
                "addressRegion": "Maharashtra",
                "postalCode": "400089",
                "addressCountry": "IN"
            },
            "sameAs": [
                "https://www.linkedin.com/company/rezilientdigital"
            ]
        }
    },
    "isAccessibleForFree": true,
    "inLanguage": "en-US",
    "wordCount": 636,
    "image": [
        "https://badiyaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/the-carlyle-ocean-drive-scaled.webp",
        "https://badiyaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/the-carlyle-ocean-drive-1024x695.webp"
    ],
    "articleSection": "Entertainment",
    "keywords": "Hank Azaria, Mike Nichols, Nathan Lane, Robin Williams, The Birdcage",
    "articleBody": "Robin Williams was never meant to play Armand. When Mike Nichols began casting The Birdcage, he pictured Williams as Albert, the flamboyant drag star, with Steve Martin as Armand, the club owner. Martin said no, and Williams, fresh off Mrs. Doubtfire, did not want another role built on a big comic disguise. So he took Armand, and the part of Albert went to a Broadway actor then little seen in films: Nathan Lane. Thirty years after the comedy opened on March 8, 1996, it remains one of the best-loved studio comedies of the 1990s. The story of how it came together is almost as farcical as the film. A remake two decades in the making The Birdcage adapts the 1978 French-Italian hit La Cage aux Folles, which itself grew out of a 1973 French stage play. Nichols had a personal history with the material. He was first attached to direct the 1983 Broadway musical version, then lost that job. In 1994 he asked his friend John Calley, then running United Artists, to renew the film rights with Nichols as director and producer. His next call went to Elaine May, his old comedy partner from the 1950s and early 1960s. She agreed the following day, making the film the first time the pair worked together on a screen project. May renamed the leads Armand and Albert Goldman and turned the in-laws into a conservative senator, Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman), and his wife, Louise (Dianne Wiest). New Orleans became South Beach The story was first set in New Orleans. Nichols, May and production designer Bo Welch toured drag shows in Chicago and Savannah for research, and after a night at a club in South Beach, Nichols moved the whole story to Miami. Most of the shoot happened in Los Angeles, but the Carlyle Hotel on Ocean Drive stood in for the exterior of the club. Lane nearly missed the film. He had already signed to star on Broadway in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Nichols persuaded producer Scott Rudin to delay the musical so Lane could shoot first. Azaria built the scene-stealing housekeeper Agador in two versions, one understated and one flamboyant, and asked a drag queen friend to pick. The louder one won. Nichols then let Williams and Lane improvise through weeks of rehearsal, keeping the best material and shooting much of it like a stage play. The numbers, then and now The gamble paid off quickly. Some key figures: Opening weekend: about $18.3 million, enough for first place in North America Weeks at number one: four in a row Worldwide total: about $185.3 million on a $31 million budget Top award: the Screen Actors Guild prize for outstanding cast performance Put another way, the film earned back its budget roughly six times over, a ratio of about 5.98 to 1 ($185.3 million divided by $31 million). For a mid-budget studio comedy with two gay men at its center in 1996, that was rare. Earlier studio films about gay characters, such as Philadelphia, had largely been tragedies about AIDS. Lane credits the film’s staying power to its heart. “It’s ultimately about family, what you do for your family, why you love your family even though they drive you crazy,” Lane has said, adding that it is, in the end, “about love.” For more 1990s and early-2000s screen history, see our look back at Beauty and the Beast at 35 and at Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone at 25. Williams died in 2014 and Hackman in 2025, which gives a rewatch at 30 a bittersweet edge. The film runs 117 minutes, and it still ends with both families slipping out through the club, disguised in drag, to Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family.” Further reading Wikipedia: The Birdcage Image: Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.",
    "markdown": "https://badiyaa.com/birdcage-30-robin-williams-nathan-lane.md"
}