Robbie Williams hopes being depicted as one other species will assist audiences see his humanity.
Within the Michael Gracey-helmed musical biopic Better Man, premiering Dec. 25 in theaters, the 18x Brit Award winner’s story is advised via actor Jonno Davies, within the type of a CGI chimpanzee, as Williams defined his “MO has been cheeky.”
“What’s extra cheeky than a cheeky monkey?” he mentioned to the Associated Press. “I’ve been a cheeky monkey all my life. There’s no extra cheekier monkey than the coke-snorting, sex-addict monkey that we discover within the film.”
Williams added, “We take care of animals greater than we take care of people, most of us. I suppose there’s a removing, as nicely. It’s very a lot a human story however if you happen to’re watching it and somebody’s taking part in Robbie Williams, you’re considering: Does he appear to be him? Does he act like him? Does he speak like him?”
The Take That alum beforehand advised Deadline referred to his primate avatar as “a very special magic trick,” explaining, “It desensitizes and sensitizes you all on the identical time. We now have deep empathy and compassion for animals, far more than we do for people.”
Robbie Williams attends a Higher Man particular screening on Nov. 13, 2024 in New York, New York. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Pictures for Paramount Footage)
Gracey additionally recounted to Deadline how the thought arose to depict Williams as a chimp after interviewing him a number of occasions over a 12 months. “I simply felt there was a extra artistic approach of coming into into this specific story,” he mentioned of Higher Man in comparison with different musical biopics.
“So I went again to these recordings, and once I was listening to them, I discovered Rob saying typically that he was simply dragged as much as carry out, like a monkey, or it didn’t actually matter,” mentioned Gracey. “He was simply up the again performing like a monkey. And he mentioned it sufficient occasions that I used to be like, ‘Oh, that’s how he sees himself. He actually sees himself as a performing monkey.’ And I assumed, ‘That will be wonderful; I’d like to see that movie.’ That’s the place the thought got here from.”
