Jessica Chastain gets candid on 'The View', recalls how Robin Williams helped her acting career

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: During her appearance on 'The View' episode aired on Friday, December 15, Jessica Chastain became emotional as she shared heartfelt sentiments about the impact that late Robin Williams had on her life.

The 46-year-old actress was on the daytime talk show to promote her latest movie 'Memory,' along with Peter Sarsgaard.

Chastain revealed that Williams was the reason she was able to study acting at Juilliard, and credited the late comedian-actor with helping her pursue a career in acting.

Jessica Chastain was raised by a financially struggling single mother

"You were the first person to go to college," co-host Whoopi Goldberg told Chastain, "And I hear you attribute your ability to stay at Julliard to a person who is special to both of us... Please tell."

"So I received the Robin Williams Scholarship," stated Chastain, as the table collectively went, "Awww," and the audience applauded.

"It was a beautiful thing ... every two years, it would be given to a student, and it paid for all of my schooling. It paid for my housing, it paid for me to be able to go home for Christmas to see the family, books, food - it was so generous," she continued.

Jessica Chastain wrote a 'Thank You' note to Robin Williams every year

"I never got to meet him," she lamented on the show.

The paths of the two stars did cross years before Chastain made her first movie. She reminisced about Williams once walking into a Los Angeles restaurant where she was with a friend.

She said, "My tablemate was like 'You have to go say Hi, you have to talk to him!' I said, 'I will,' but I was so shy."

She decided to wait for Williams to finish his meal, but the comedian rushed out after a couple of minutes, and Chastain decided against pursuing him.

"And I always regret it," she expressed, "Because I never had the opportunity to say thank you in person."

Williams died in 2014, at the age of 63.

“I tell people if they ever see me out in public or whatever and you want to come say hi, please come and say hi to me! Because it’s so important to me and … I wish I could have thanked him,” stated Chastain, with glistening eyes.

Goldberg reassured the guest saying, "As an actor, he (Robin Williams) loved actors, and he always wanted people to have the opportunities that maybe he wasn’t able to fulfill the way he wanted to, so I know that that was special to him.”