Robbie Williams and director Michael Gracey have spoken to NME about Better Man, the new Williams biopic featuring a CGI monkey (performed by actor Jonno Davies) in the lead role.
The duo revealed the logic behind the unusual choice, the film’s no-holds-barred depiction of Williams’ drug and alcohol addictions and why we empathise more with animals than human beings in cinema.
Williams also speculated on Liam Gallagher’s reaction to his role in the film and opened up about his forthcoming 13th studio album, which features Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi and British hard-rock legend Glenn Hughes on one track.
The monkey came about because, Robbie, Michael asked what animal you might be. You said…
Robbie Williams: “Lion. I was trying to get some self-worth for myself at the time – and still, every day. Chin out, chest out – lion. And Michael just went: [looks uncertain]. I went: ‘Monkey?’ He went, ‘Yeah, OK,’ and pitched me the idea and I was totally onboard.”
“Because that’s it, innit? I’m a cheeky monkey, aren’t I? If they said, on Family Fortunes, ‘We asked 100 people, “What animal is Robbie Williams?”’, the people that don’t hate me would probably go, ‘He’s a monkey.’”
Michael, why did you want Robbie to be an animal in the first place?
Michael Gracey: “There’s been a number of musical biopics and I was searching for something that would be, from an audience point of view, more interesting. When I came up with that idea, it just really made me smile. You see more of Rob in the monkey than you would if it was an actor playing him. We did hi-res scans of Rob’s eyes, so it is actually, in all those close-ups, Rob looking out at you.”
A lot of music biopics are cleaned-up versions of the story, with the Freddie Mercury movie Bohemian Rhapsody being the prime example. You don’t go down the family friendly route here…
MG: “Rob’s life has not been family friendly.”
RW: “I haven’t lived a PG life! Neither had Freddie Mercury but there are three members of that band that need to OK things – there’s less people to go through to get to me. One of my strengths – being ADHD and neurodivergent and being on the spectrum – is that I don’t pick up on the cues of stuff that you’re not supposed to say… until the thing that I’ve said reaches the person’s ears and they go: [looks shocked]. I go: ‘Did I do a thing?’ My autism, I suppose, is a useful tool for a filmmaker that wants to exploit that!”
MG: “When you go to those darker moments, you feel the light so much more. That’s in the narratives that I love watching. Films like All That Jazz are just fantastic because they don’t shy away from showing the darker moments and I think there is something for an audience that is a lot more respectful when you show truth.
“It’s more relatable as well, because we as an audience go, ‘We’ve also done things we’re ashamed of, that we’ve don’t wanna talk about, or we’ve said things we regret.’ That makes it a much more engaging experience.”
RW: “I think we all wanna expel the things that live in the dark corners of our minds and memories, and I’m lucky enough to get to do it on such a grandiose scale. In some sort of way for me, it’s healing.”
What do you reckon Liam Gallagher will make of his depiction in the film?
RW: “I think that there’ll be a bit of him that’s happy that he exists in it. Did you send him the script Michael?”
MG: “I don’t think Liam’s read it [but] there’s nothing in there that’s not common knowledge.”
RW: “Uh-oh! [adopts a legalistic tone] There’s not anything there that isn’t 100 per cent factual! That’s how he behaved! That’s the person that he was! And in a court of law, it all stands up!
“I dunno, man. The people that we were are different people than we are right now. I see Liam and I love his interviews, and I love the person that he is becoming. He’s kindly now and introspective and still marvellously funny – but the edges have been taken off. Same with me: the edges have been taken off. So, in the movie, he’s a representation of who he was then and I’m a representation of who I was then. I don’t want him to be upset. I hope he likes it. The guy that plays Noel has only got one line, but that one line is so unbelievably Noel, it’s incredible: ‘Fuck off, cunt!’”
Michael, were you surprised by how far Robbie was willing to go with those darker elements in the film?
MG: “To read it in script form is one thing. To see it up on the screen, large, is another. I knew Rob was totally onboard with the script because he’d read it and signed off on it, and we were all set to make that film. You have a level of empathy with animals that is different to humans. We are very numb, cinematically, to seeing humans suffer, whereas there is something deeply unsettling about watching a monkey snorting coke. It’s not glamorous. It’s like: ‘Ugh!’”
RW: “That’s the kind of Siegfried & Roy [the German-American magicians and entertainers who were big in the ‘80s and ‘90s] show I wanna see, though.
MG: “When you go to those really dark places, it’s wonderful that Rob didn’t shy away from it. I would tell you if he made us cut anything. This would be my moment to say: ‘There’s this great sequence that Rob couldn’t handle. But the truth is that there isn’t a single shot in the film that Rob took out.”
What was it like for you actually seeing the film, Robbie?
RW: “Tears. And triggering. And grief. And healing. And ego. And: ‘Look at what’s happened to me!’. It just depends on which version of me turns up for the screening on that particular day – and how much sleep I’ve had. At the minute, I just wanna take all of this in. I wanna drink every moment that I can, because I’m now in a place where I can derive joy from life. I couldn’t derive any joy from life for such a long time. And I feel as though I’m getting lucky again and I’m getting another bite of the apple.”
Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath reportedly appears on ‘Rocket’, a song from your new album…
RW: “And Glenn Hughes! I wanted to make the album that I’d make if I’d left Take That now, knowing what I know. This particular song encapsulates that perfectly. Unfortunately and fortunately for me, pop songs turned up along the way, too. I’m like: ‘Ah, fuck – a hit!’ This [track] is massive guitars, as you can imagine. It’s adrenaline-filled and balls-to-the-wall. That one in particular is my favourite song off my new album – that I’ve just announced is happening!”
When’s it out?
RW: “I dunno – let’s see how well the film does…”
MG: “No pressure”
‘Better Man’ is released in UK and Irish cinemas on December 26