It was after one particularly emotional premiere of the new biopic about his life that Robbie Williams resolved he couldn’t be “the crying guy” at every screening.
“Better Man,” which chronicles the life of Williams, the British pop star and former Take That singer, can hit him differently at different times. Jet lag is a factor. So is who’s in the building. One screening with his band, he says, was “healing.” But he’s self-conscious enough about all the emotion that he can be defensive about it.
“In real life I don’t cry that much,” Williams says and then smiles. “You have a (expletive) biography about you and have the world go, ‘I’ve seen you and heard you’ and come tell me how you deal with it.'”
One twist? The Williams heard in “Better Man” is Williams, himself. But the Williams seen in the movie is a computer-generated chimpanzee. Michael Gracey, who directed the 2017 musical hit “The Greatest Showman,” had the novel idea that Williams should get the big-screen biopic treatment, but with a monkey. Relying on Weta’s motion capture technology, the actor Jonno Davies stands in for Williams.
In “Better Man,” which will open in limited theaters Dec. 25 and expand nationwide Jan. 10, that makes for a compelling spin on the music biopic, partly because it’s still a quite R-rated journey through the ups and downs of mega pop stardom.
Williams, who met a reporter last month on a stopover in New York, also hopes it will expand his footprint in America, where he’s famously less famous than he is in Europe.
“If I want to phone Macron, I phone Macron. If I want to phone Keir Starmer, I phone Keir Starmer. If I want to phone Trump, he’s not taking my call,” Williams says with a laugh. “Maybe he would, I don’t know.”
“Maybe this film moves the needle for me,” Williams, 50, adds. “Or if it doesn’t, I’ll do something else.”
What both a conversation with Williams and “Better Man” have in common is a frankness about the experience of fame. More than it’s a litany of chart-topping successes, “Better Man” is a chronicle of fame-induced trauma, complete with drug addiction and mental breakdown.
Williams, now, though, is a reformed bad boy — a family man with four kids with all kinds of plans, like building hotels and buying sports teams.
“At the moment,” he says, “I have the wide-optimism of a new artist.”
Q: Did your identification with monkeys predate “Better Man”?
WILLAMS: Well, let me know, in the biography of your life, what animal would play you?
Q. I don’t know. A chipmunk?
WILLIAMS: I asked my friend this morning, Joey McIntyre, from New Kids on the Block, and he said, “an owl.” And I agreed with him. An owl would be good for him. Did this predate? I guess so, subconsciously. My MO has been cheeky. What’s more cheeky than a cheeky monkey? I’ve been a cheeky monkey all my life. There’s no more cheekier monkey than the coke-snorting, sex-addict monkey that we find in the movie.
Q: I’ve never seen a monkey do so much coke.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, we’ve seen a bear do a lot of coke but never a monkey.
Q: Do you think it’s easier for audiences to empathize with a monkey than for you?
WILLIAMS: We care for animals more than we care for humans, most of us. I guess there is a removal, as well. It’s very much a human story but if you’re watching it and someone’s playing Robbie Williams, you’re thinking: Does he look like him? Does he act like him? Does he talk like him?
Q: As someone who’s been open about difficulties in life, you’re not new to the idea that people don’t have a lot of sympathy for wealthy pop stars. You were probably suffering very human things at a time when people didn’t see you as human.
WILLIAMS: I think they have sympathy once you come through the other side and you’re talking about something in the past. Everybody loves a story of redemption. The redemption is: I was this guy who experienced this thing but I’ve endured and overcome it. You throw in a word like “endure,” and I can already hear British people going “(Expletive) you! What did you endure? Knickers being thrown at you.” Dude, I was mentally ill. I still am, but I’m in a good place. I couldn’t derive joy from anything because I was mentally ill. I won a sprinting race with two broken legs.
Q: It was that bad?
WILLIAMS: Yeah. My story’s not unusual. There’s a boy band documentary that’s going to be on tele in Britain that I’ve taken part in, and everyone’s story is the same. They’ve got the bends. They experienced this thing that warped them and gave them mental breakdowns.
I can’t apologize for the truth, and the truth is there’s something about this matrix-bending, washing-machine fame that’s deeply unhealthy. No matter what job you have or what path you choose in life, you spend the second 20 years of your life sorting out the first 20 years. It just so happens I did it in public and told people exactly what was going as it was going on. And still do.
Q: When One Direction singer Liam Payne died, you seemed to understand what he might have been going through.
WILLIAMS: Here’s the thing: I’m always astonished — may he rest in peace, bless him, beautiful boy — that the entertainment industry isn’t littered with those types of cases, that we can’t point to 30 of them.
Q: Fame, as you describe it, would seem clearly unhealthy. But does some part of you need it?
WILLIAMS: It’s different now. I (expletive) love it. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’m 50 and I’m incredibly grateful for fame. It facilitates everything that I need and want to do with my life. I was just too young to receive it, and I wasn’t surrounded by good people. And I wasn’t good people. But now I can’t speak highly enough of it. (Laughs)
Q: Part of your appeal has always been your candor. In your experience, though, does show business work against remaining authentic?
WILLIAMS: It depends who you are. Most people I meet in the industry, they’re nice folk. But a lot of the people that I meet also are narcissists and they understand on some level that it’s best to cover up their true nature. So they do. Now there’s cancellation, so you’ve got a lot of people terrified of saying the wrong thing.
The interesting that I’ve carved out for me, by mistake, is that the only villain in my story when I talk is me. None of my opinions are political. None of my opinions are cancellable. The only person that can cancel me is me.
Q: So how did you turn your life around? You’ve often credited your wife.
WILLIAMS: Ayda was credited with saving my life before she saved my life. I was like, “You (expletive).” I was like: I’ve done a lot of work on myself here. Don’t give her all the credit. But now I can give her way more credit than I was giving her because I’ve realize how much she’s done.
Without that grounding, my life would be a lot different. I probably wouldn’t be here. Because I have somebody in my life that’s worth me being the best version of myself 24 hours out of the day, I’m better. And because there’s four young souls that need looking after, my purpose is a lot different. I suppose my purpose at one time, due to finding hedonism incredibly intoxicating, was to be the most (expletive) person in the room. But now I want to be the most well person in the room. I intend to be the wellest person in the mother-(expletive) room. (Laughs)
Q: When you go on a worldwide tour next year, do you do things differently to help you stay sane?
WILLLIAMS: Yeah and no. The no bit is: It’s OK. I’ve come to realize, I didn’t die. There’s a bit more wisdom now. The lunatic that was in the car is still in the car, but he doesn’t drive anymore.
