Robbie Williams (right) poses next to director Michael Gracey on the red carpet on the day of the screening of Better Man in Rome, Dec. 6, 2024.Yara Nardi/Reuters
British pop star Robbie Williams and Australian director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) talk about the new biopic musical Better Man, in which Williams is portrayed by actor Jonno Davies in the form of a computer-generated chimpanzee.
Let’s address the elephant in the room. Why is Robbie a monkey in the film?
Michael Gracey: When Robbie told us his stories, I thought they were great narratives. I wanted to find a really unique way into them.
I think the choice took the film in a dreamy, surreal direction and less a biopic.
Gracey: I totally agree. Being a musical, you’re already in a heightened space. People are breaking into a song to express their inner thoughts and feelings. You’re given a sentimental licence theatrically to do that. You add the monkey, and you’re taking even more licence.
How do you know when to break into a song?
Gracey: A character should sing when words no longer suffice. I’m so devastated that I can only express this through song. I’m so elated and euphoric that words will not do justice to how I feel.
Robbie, we can see the film as a love letter to your grandmother. But your relationship with your father is much more complicated. What kind of letter are you sending to him with Better Man?
Robbie Williams: The portrayal of my dad by Steve Pemberton is absolutely incredible. But it’s a confusing thing for me. It was a one-dimensional look at a relationship between the two of us, where there are obviously three dimensions to it. Not everything happened the way it was represented in the film. But it was how it felt.
What are the other dimensions of the relationship?
Williams: My dad is incredibly lovable and incredibly charismatic. Nobody leaves his company not falling in love with him. But with the portrayal of my dad in the movie, it’s difficult to love him. So, it’s complicated. We had to do it that way to have the film make sense.
In the film, your father says that nobody is interested in an entertainer’s problems. Yet, recent biopics on Elton John and Freddie Mercury, and now Better Man, suggest there’s an appetite for the pop star’s problems.
Williams: There is, in this space – of the biopic. And there is in this space after you’ve overcome the problems. You are a celebrity, and it should be an honour and it should be a privilege to experience the gift that has been bestowed you, and how dare you complain about anything. But I was that soldier who was like, ‘Hey, my mental health is not good – this is weird stuff.’ And everybody in England was like, ‘How dare you?’ But when you come through the other end and talk about it in the past, you’re allowed to do that.
Would it be a compliment if I said Better Man didn’t seem like a biopic?
Gracey: Yes, it would.
Williams: I hope that it’s not like a biopic or a musical. Was it a musical to you?
It’s definitely a musical.
Williams: Oh, okay. I don’t really see it as one.
Gracey: It is a musical. It has a musical’s narrative. People have a weird relationship with musicals.
Williams: I do. The ones I like, which are not very many, I like. Then I hate everything else, passionately. I don’t like saying that. I don’t like being passionate about hate.
An unflattering look at the lead character has to be presented in order for the redemption narrative to make sense. Robbie, what was that like to see yourself as “punchable,” as it’s said in the film?
Williams: Well, it was conceit to sell the movie. I was never like that. [Laughs.] No, I couldn’t tell you what it’s like in a soundbite. Sometimes it’s just a relief that a project that took so many years to make turned out to be incredible. And then sometimes it hits me so deeply in a place of unresolved trauma that I pretty much figure there’s a healing.
If the trauma is unresolved, how is it healing?
Williams: Maybe it isn’t healing. I don’t know. It’s so many different things to me all at once. But life is so many different things to me all at once. When I came on stage after the screening for the Q&A at the Toronto International Film Festival, I couldn’t stop crying. I realized in the moment, cynically, that this is a great way to sell the movie – me crying.
There was a lot of crying at the festival. Elton John cried.
Williams: Really? What was he crying about?
He cried on red carpet when he was asked a question about his new documentary.
Williams: Oh. Well, I’m going to cry better than ‘im!
This interview has been edited and condensed.