Robbie Williams explains why his character is played by a monkey in new film

Robbie Williams is thoroughly enjoying his foray into the film world, even if he’s still learning the right language.

“I was at a thing called the Governors Ball the other night. It was amazing,” says the singer.

He’s talking about the Governors Awards held in Los Angeles, where he joined other guests including Tom Hanks, Angelina Jolie and Daniel Craig.

“I’m so excited because this is all so new to me. I feel like an artist who has just been signed. I’m full of hope, full of excitement, in awe of it all.”

The project in which he is currently walking the red carpet with the biggest names in Hollywood is his biopic Better Man.

“Kevin Costner sought me out,” he says, laughing, adding with growing incredulity: “He wanted to come and tell me about the movie.”

Better Man deals with Williams’ life from his childhood through the Take That years to about 2003, the year he broke records by playing three huge shows at Knebworth (with the aim of upsetting Oasis, who could only manage two). Could).

The twist in the tale or tail is that throughout the film, and without any explanation, he is portrayed as a monkey on screen.

At least that’s how everyone involved in the film refers to the animal. If Sir David Attenborough were engaged in a film review, he would immediately point out in hushed tones that the creature that sings Angels and Rock DJs is a chimpanzee, not a monkey – because it has no tail.

To recap, the debut album by Williams’ old boyband, Ape That and Party.

Williams is speaking to me in London’s Soho Hotel, which is so popular in the film industry that at the same time, Rupert Everett is presenting an award on one floor, while in the basement there is a screening of a documentary produced by Jennifer Lawrence . ,

Williams is seated next to Michael Gracey, director of the 2017 hit The Greatest Showman.

Now, after a gap of seven years, Better Man is Gracie’s next film, and it was his idea to turn the lead man into a monkey.

For a year and a half, Williams and Gracey had been messaging repeatedly, discussing a possible film musical based on his life.

“There have been a lot of musical biopics,” says Gracie. “I wanted to come at it from a different perspective.

“Often Rob says, ‘I’m like a performing monkey’ or ‘I’m holding back like a performing monkey.’

“That led to this idea, we have a chance to tell this story, not from the perspective of how we see Rob, but from the perspective of how he sees himself.

“And so I pitched this idea to Rob. I said, ‘You know, if you were an animal, how would you see yourself?'”

Williams continues the story: “I was looking for some self-worth at the time and I was like, ‘I’m a lion.’ And she shook her head and said, ‘Mmm.’

“I went, ‘Monkey?’

“And he said, ‘Yeah, so that’s the idea.’ And before the end of the sentence comes out of her mouth, I say, ‘Yes, she, she, she, please’.”

The monkey was created by Weta, the special effects company responsible for Gollum in Lord of the Rings and Caesar in Planet of the Apes. He used a combination of motion capture and CGI, with the role and speaking voice taken by English actor Johnno Davis, best known as Tobias in the Al Pacino TV series Hunters.

But it turned out that the original plan was for Williams himself to play the monkey.

“I was going to go, but it meant leaving my family for several months,” he says, “and the thought of that was too much for me to bear.

“There are so many things I want to do, it’s best to just have an idea. It was great at dinner parties to be like, ‘I’m playing me in a story about myself.’

“And by the time this came out, I was tired of the idea. ‘I’ve even said it at dinner parties now. I’ve done it.'”

Williams performed the entire My Way while wired to help with motion capture in specially staged concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in 2022.

“We also scanned his eyes, so when you see the monkey’s eyes, it’s actually the eyes of a monkey,” explains Gracie.

“I don’t want to know which part is me and which part isn’t me,” Williams interjects.

“I want the magic of the film to remain just the magic of the film.

“Also, Jono, who plays me, has an amazing bottom and I want to believe that the part is me, that my butt will be as epic as it is.”

Robbie Williams has called Better Man “the greatest hits of my trauma for the TikTok generation”.

And the film doesn’t shy away from dealing with his drug addiction and mental health problems, or when Nicole Appleton of All Saints was pregnant with his child and people in the music industry pressured her to have an abortion, he said.

Williams admits, “I’m still ashamed of my part in his life. That’s the hardest part of the film for me to watch.”

“He did me no harm and is a kind, loving person. I was a foolish young lover.”

Appleton is supportive of the film and was consulted throughout production – unlike Williams’ father Peter Conway, a singer with whom she has performed several times over the years.

In Better Man, he is played by Inside Number 9’s Steve Pemberton and is portrayed as a man who has let his family down.

Williams says, “He hasn’t seen it yet. And I don’t know if I want him to see it.”

“I haven’t talked to him about it. I’m embarrassed. I love my dad. Best friend, charming, wonderful man.”

“But as it happens with everyone’s childhood, like the Philip Larkin poem, ‘They mess you up with your mom and dad.’ And I’m messing up my kids.”

The film also paints a very toxic picture of Williams’ time at Take That.

“There’s a pattern – boys join a boyband, the boyband gets too big, the boys get sick. And I don’t think anyone will survive that,” he sums up.

“I don’t know exactly what it is about fame that distorts. I just know that it does. I know that youth fame, especially, is corrosive and toxic. It comes with a health warning. Should come.”

The death earlier this year of One Direction’s Liam Payne, whom he mentored on The X Factor in 2010, has inspired him to change the way he looks after the boyband.

He says, “It’s going to take a group of creative people, and I want to lead that. I want to do that.”

“It needs creative people, not Members of Parliament or record company owners. I think it needs highly sensitive people with complex inner lives, who understand what a complex inner life looks like and what it takes to help it.” Will be required.”

But these plans will have to wait.

At present, Williams’ entire focus is on the film and Oscar.

Success in the US is quite a change for a singer who famously never broke America. (The Angels peaked at number 53 on the Billboard charts, The Millennium at 72 and that’s about it.)

In 2002, he also mocked the situation with the self-deprecating I’ll Talk and Hollywood Will Listen, in which the title song rhymes with “Mr. Spielberg looks just for what you’re missing”.

How things change. Better Man has already earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Song. And on Tuesday, he’ll find out if Forbidden Road, which plays over the end credits, is one of the 15 songs on the shortlist for Academy Awards.

There are many other categories in which the film can get nomination.

“Best visual effects,” Gracie begins before Williams interjects once again.

“The Best Musical Monkey!” He smiles.

Gracie laughs. “If that were a category, we would definitely win.”

Hollywood is really starting to listen.