Robin Williams Legacy Award Honors Damon and Affleck at $2.5 Million Event
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck received the robin williams Legacy of Laughter Award on Monday at Bring Change to Mind’s Revels & Revelations celebration in the Bay Area. The honor tied their long-running public link to Good Will Hunting to a night that raised $2.5 million for a mental health nonprofit.
Damon and Affleck wore San Francisco Giants hats in Williams’s honor, a gesture aimed at the longtime Giants fan they worked with in 1997. Damon joked, “We should get this over with,” then added, “That’s the first time in 55 years and that’s for Robin.”
Good Will Hunting in 1997
Williams starred opposite Damon and Affleck in Good Will Hunting and won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for the film. Damon said that when Williams read the script and decided to do it, “all of our problems went away,” a blunt reminder of how much leverage one actor can have when a project is trying to move from page to screen.
Affleck said Williams was “the person that made the most meaningful impact on our professional lives, bar none,” and added that many of their dreams might not have come true without him. He also said, “It’s really appropriate; he would be, I think, enormously proud and happy that this context is how he’s being honored.”
Zak, Zelda and Cody Williams
Zak Williams, Zelda Williams and Cody Williams were on hand to present the award, giving the evening a direct family presence instead of a distant tribute. Their participation kept the focus on Williams’s legacy as something his children are actively carrying into public conversation, not just commemorating from the sidelines.
The Bay Area event also marked 15 years of Bring Change to Mind work aimed at starting conversations about mental health. That pairing matters because the award was not handed out in isolation; it landed inside a fundraiser that used Williams’s name, Damon and Affleck’s careers, and the $2.5 million total to turn remembrance into support for the nonprofit’s mission.
Bring Change to Mind Bay Area
The practical takeaway is simple: the honor was not symbolic only. It helped drive a $2.5 million fundraising result for a mental health organization co-founded by Glenn Close, and it placed Williams’s legacy in front of an audience already primed to hear about mental health without the usual Hollywood distance.
