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Robbie Williams On His Touching Reception As A Pan Troglodyte
Better Man, chronicling the warts-and-all rise-and-fall — and rise again — career of UK pop phenom and self-described self-loather Robbie Williams is unlike any other biopic. While Williams, now 50, narrates the story, he is portrayed by actor Jonno Davies as a chimpanzee. Better Man is directed by Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman), and if it sounds odd that’s because it is, but somehow this CGI-primate with the singer’s facial expressions and mannerisms is both endearing and an ass. We accept him, root for him, laugh with his cockiness, gasp at his self-destruction. “I don’t want to be a nobody,” he says as the adorable kid chimpanzee, a desire that dominates his life — probably to this day.
For the unfamiliar, Williams got his break at age 16 as a member of ’90s boy band Take That, before his quitting the group led to a phenomenal solo career in which he played to a record-setting 375,000 people over three nights at the Knebworth Festival in 2003, and sold over 75 million albums thanks to hits like “Angels,” “Old Before I Die,” “Let Me Entertain You,” “Come Undone,” “Rock DJ,” “Kids” and “Millennium.”
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His success was accompanied by a shitstorm of depression and mental illness intertwined with booze and drug habits. All this is told with a mix of grit and sensitivity in a multi-layered film that dazzles by its sheer technological achievement and storytelling that covers his complicated relationship with his entertainer dad, his loving encouraging nan, the ego-driven band rivalry, and tumultuous whirlwind romance with Nicole Appleton.
Better Man opens January 10, and might spur a menagerie category at a future Oscars: Swift as a giraffe; Madonna as a Panther…
Raechelle Banno as Canadian member of girl-group All Saints and former Williams-girlfriend Nicole Appleton with Jonno Davies as Robbie. (Courtesy of Paramount Pictures)SPIN spoke to Williams about the film.
[Publicist on Zoom call] Please say your name and outlet and you can begin.
SPIN: My name is Karen Bliss. My outlet is SPIN. Hi Robbie. How are you?
Robbie Williams: Hi Karen. My outlet is self-sabotage and sugar.
That’s a nice combo. I’ve seen the film twice. The first time was during TIFF [Toronto International Film Festival], so I went in cold and I was like, “What the fuck? He’s a monkey?” And then like 10 minutes in, I’m like, “Sure, he’s a monkey.” You go with it. I even got a little teary in certain parts. You got very emotional after the screening. Why?
I wasn’t expecting to get emotional after because I’d seen the scenes as they were being stitched together and I’d done my crying then. No spoilers, but it’s the greatest hits of my grief. And then I watched the movie for the first time, hoping and praying that it was good, and it was. And then I get to TIFF and I’m just incensed on soaking in the moment. And I sit with Jonno, who plays me, and Michael Gracey, who directed it, and I feel very proud that I’m sat in Canada; there’s 2000 people watching my story, and I get to soak it all in and be grateful of the moment. And then what happened was at the end of it, having me expose all of my demons and all the worst aspects of myself, 2000 strangers turned around and clapped me and Jono and Michael that were on a balcony. And in that moment, something unexpected happened, but I completely understood that I was being seen and heard and forgiven and loved, all in one, by a bunch of strangers that know nothing about me. And that touched me on such a profound level.
Robbie Williams in human form, 1991. (Credit: Dave Hogan via Getty Images)Has that changed over the months since? Is it as healing, as cathartic or re-traumatizing or are you like, “Oh, there’s me as a monkey. Aren’t I cute?”
What is great is I don’t have to worry about the film being good or touching people because I know the magic that I have felt is being felt by the people that actually see it too. So now I’m comfortable [with] the aspect that the movie is better than shit; it’s actually something that I can be really proud of. I mean, look at the Rotten Tomatoes; there is 91% journalists and 98% audience reaction. This is not lost on me, but there’s so many aspects that this movie in particular has wrapped up and what it means to me as a fat 11-year-old with no self-worth at all. It’s very easy to get wrapped up with the expectation train, get on that train and be led into oblivion yet again, and what that means for my psyche if I pull all the levers and the machine doesn’t work.
It is extraordinary because the film could’ve been crap. The whole concept is wacky.
It could have been Howard the Duck.
Director Michael Gracey pointing the way. (Courtesy of Paramount Pictures)I don’t cry watching Planet of the Apes but I did in this. I’m sure there’s people that go in to Better Man and they’re completely lost. I think you have to have a self-deprecating kind of humor to get it and not walk out going, “Why the fuck is he a monkey? I don’t get it.” Has there been a different response in US versus UK?
The “what the fuck, I don’t get it “ happens to the people that haven’t seen it. If I go with general reaction, it seems that 98% of people leave the movie not only getting it, but completely embracing it and being completely moved by it.
Liam Head as Howard Donald, Jonno Davies clad in CGI-enabling bodywear as Robbie Williams, and Jake Simmance as Gary Barlow. (Courtesy of Paramount Pictures)Let me ask you about the language in the script. The C-word [cunt] is widely used over in the UK, but it can get you cancelled in America, I think. You use the work “twat” a lot too. Also, a great word for certain occasions. Was using it in the script ever questioned?
No, if you’re going to take a huge swing and have your movie be R-rated, you better make it worth it. Otherwise, if we were going to cut that out, why wouldn’t we cut out lots of other things too? We could have made this a whole lot easier and more commercial for ourselves if we’d have made it PG. As it happens, to tell my story authentically, I didn’t live a PG life. And I don’t have PG verbiage. This is how I speak. That is how I was. This is a representation of me. It may not have happened in that order, but everything was how it felt.
How did you end up writing a new song for the film?
There needed to be a hug at the end of this movie, a hug in the form of a musical hug. I’d sent a bunch of songs to Michael Gracey having not seen the movie and he kept sending them back saying, “No, this is not right.” And I’m sensitive. So, I was upset that he was telling me it wasn’t right. Then, I saw the movie and I completely understood that what was needed was not what I was sending. And the song that we wrote — me, Freddy [Wexler] and Sacha [Skarbek] — was a musical hug to let you know that I know I’ve just put you through an awful lot, but we’re all okay.
Let me ask you about fame. Now there’s kids that think they just want to be famous. There’s TikTok, Instagram and OnlyFans. In retrospect, do you think you can enjoy fame without the pitfalls of drug addiction, being an asshole, self-isolating, being arrogant, all those things?
No, because you’re contracting mental illness. That’s what you’re doing. And how you act and behave towards it is how you act and behave towards it; you can’t contract fame and not be bemused, affected by it on such a profound unconscious level that you spend the life trying to figure out how to put it in its right box. Now, what I will say, for most people that I meet in the entertainment industry that are forward-facing, that are on camera, most people aren’t egoic and twats, but the people with the ego and the twats really stand out and give the entertainment industry a bad name. But I’ve also met people in the energy industry; I’ve met people in the clothing industry that are huge — forgive my language — cunts. They just don’t get the attention that people in the entertainment industry do because people in the entertainment industry, their bread and butter is attention. And the worst aspects of every part of society will make the most noise. The world’s worst 2% make 98% of the noise.
You say in the film that you thought the fame would solve everything. When did you come to the realization that it doesn’t? Was it in sobriety? Was it in advanced adulthood — you’re still young [50], but you know what I’m saying [laughs]?
I’m good. I’m an old pop star now. It’s okay. It’s fine. It’s reality. When did it happen? When did it? So, I remember I had this house on a lake. It had its own lake. And I remember as this [enormous fame] was happening, there was these patio doors onto this giant veranda that overlooked this lake. And like a scene from a movie, I was on my knees sobbing, looking at what I’d acquired and feeling how fucked up and how unhappy I was. And I could see it, like a camera from above coming in at this moment. It was very cinematic. But I suppose that you only realize, consciously, what you’re seeking consciously when it breaks you. And in that moment, I was broken. I realized that I’d got to the top of the mountain and it was desolate and I was lonely and my subconscious came to the front and went ‘Hahahahahaaaa, it didn’t do it.’ [laughs].
Well, we are all rooting for you. What are your plans for this year? We want new music. We want to see you in concert over here. What is happening?
I want to come to North America. Hopefully, if the success makes an indent, I will do that. I will be touring. Tickets have gone on sale already in the rest of the world [UK, Europe]. They’re doing great, thank you. And, yeah, I’ve got so many things that exist outside of the entertainment industry that happened because I’m in the entertainment industry. I’ve got loads of aspects of business that I want to do. So I need to exist in the public’s attention for me to facilitate everything else that I want to do.
“I need to exist in the public’s attention for me to facilitate everything else that I want to do,” says Robbie, snapped here at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, December 6, 2024. (Credit: Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images)You also have a solo art exhibit [Confessions of a Crowded Mind].
In Barcelona, Amsterdam, and one’s gonna happen in London, too. I also want to build a university of entertainment and create the syllabus. I want to build hotels with their entertainment venues in them. I have entertainment venues separate to that that I’m doing. I want to buy a soccer team. I also have drinks coming out and I have clothes coming out.
I’m very busy.
Wow, that is a lot. In the film, without giving too much away, there are the “nasty monkeys” in the audience, that negative inner voice, kind of imposter syndrome. Do you still get that?
Yeah. For example, I did a live 30 minutes on TV in Australia on New Year’s Eve. And I got a cold that’s kicking my ass on top of jetlag, and then getting up in front of 11 million people that are watching, and then however many millions of people that could dissect a viral moment if I let my crazy out. So, while I’m on stage, I’m enjoying myself, while also at the same time thinking about Twitter, and the sewage that is on there, and how they must be responding to my performance, whilst also at the same time having a left nostril that is dripping because of the cold, whilst thinking that people will think that I’m on cocaine, whilst having a good time at the same time [laughs].
That’s a lot of inner voices. I do love your humor though; when you’re walking through Hyde Park in your pink suit, trying to see if anyone would recognize you [laughs].
And no one was recognizing me. It was scary.
So, are you a big deal now, again?
Yeah, yeah, I am. I am. I’m trying to put everything in the right box and have everything be the right size. And I can only guess at what my future is. And if Rod Stewart is anything to go by — I’ve had a Rod Stewart style career, and he still gets to be Rod Stewart. I hope that the general public allows me to be Robbie Williams when I’m Rod Stewart’s age.
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