The Birdcage came out nearly twenty years ago and is perhaps best remembered for Christine Baranski's gams and Nathan Lane's bravura scenery-chewing as a drag queen who attempts to pass as a biological woman. The late Robin Williams played the figurative straight man as Lane's perpetually put-upon partner, though the two comedians had enough chemistry to blow up a science lab. In a recent interview with CBS, Lane fondly remembered his co-star.

“I’ve been very sad. It’s hard to talk about,” Lane said of Williams, who was found dead at age 63 after apparently hanging himself last week. “The heartbreaking thing is the notion that he was in such pain and despair that he felt that was the only way out, and I hate thinking about that.”

A remake of the Oscar-winning French film, La Cage Aux Folles, The Birdcage starred Williams as Armand Goldman, the owner of the titular nightclub. Lane played his lover, Albert who stars as the club's main attraction, Starina. When their son breaks the news that he's marrying Ally McBeal and her parents are two conservative stick-in-the-muds, Armand, Albert and their houseboy Agador try to play it straight to hilarious effect. Meanwhile, why Williams and Lane weren't pelted with trophies I'll never know.

“Nobody was more kind or generous, and he was the most compassionate and sensitive soul — I mean, obviously, funny, and you know; an entertaining person to be around,” Lane said. “He was an extraordinary intellect...I think that all we can do is just remember him as the genius he was and what he left behind.”