Robbie Williams has always been an open book. In a docuseries released in 2023, he spoke candidly about how his Take That stardom crippled his mental health, rocketing him into drug addiction. And now, in his autobiographical movie, Better Man, actor Jonno Davies portrays a younger Williams on the brink of a breakdown in the late ’90s after his then partner, All Saints singer Nicole Appleton, terminated their pregnancy at the insistence of her record label.
Appleton was reportedly consulted on Better Man’s script, which might be why Williams told Hello! magazine that revisiting that time in his life was tough. “The most difficult bit is watching Nicole and what we went through, because she was instructed to get rid of our baby,” he said, also detailing his own regrets. “I was a f–king awful boyfriend, like, really awful, and I was in the height of my addiction and alcoholism. And it breaks my heart every time I watch it, because she’s a complete angel, and there is still shame attached to who I was then.”
What is the Better Man film about?
There’s no sugar-coating Williams’ life in Better Man. Its depiction of his addiction would make anyone squirm and his mental health issues are something he still grapples with today. “It remains constantly uncomfortable,” Williams has admitted. Even after all these years, he gets severe anxiety before performing. “There’s no distinction between me looking like I’m having the best time in the world and a panic attack. It’s odd being able to lie on such a grand scale and even my wife can’t read me when I’m feeling anxious on stage.”
While the film has already been well received with audiences at Toronto and Telluride film festivals, Williams admits he was nervous about his former bandmates seeing it.
“I’m terrified because our relationship is so complicated and so healed that returning to the scene of the crime and talking in the way that I talked as a 17-year-old is bound to open old wounds for people,” Williams told Deadline.
Something else to have come from the film is a new song that Williams wrote after seeing the finished biopic for the first time. Called ‘Forbidden Road’, he describes it as a “melancholic cuddle”. It plays during the credits, with Williams explaining, “I understood that the audience had been through so much by the end of the film that they’d need a bit of a cuddle. And that’s what the song is.”
Williams wonders if fans will begin to view him in a new light after watching the biopic, which sees Davis voice a monkey version of the pop star. Yes, we’ll get to that part in a moment.
“People may think they know how things were, but they don’t know,” Williams has said. “I want people to feel emotionally connected to what they’ve just seen. I want people to leave the cinema or leave their sofa or turn the TV off having thought that it was completely worth their time … And if it became the fabric of people’s pop culture lives that would be wonderful. If I could dream that big.”
Why is the monkey in Better Man?
In terms of the film concept, which sees Davis – and at one point Williams – voice a monkey version of the singer, the idea came about after director Michael Gracey, who had spent hundreds of hours recording Williams’ stories, reviewed them and honed in on the fact that the recording artist often described himself as a proverbial performing monkey.
“Rob would say things like, ‘I’m up the back dancing like a monkey,’ or ‘I was completely out of it, but they were dragging me up on stage to perform like a monkey.’ And after a while, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing to represent Rob as a monkey in the film?’” explained Gracey, who is best known for his 2017 musical blockbuster, The Greatest Showman.
And when the idea was pitched to Williams, the spirited eccentric in him was all in. “My life always seems to be a tightrope act with no safety harness,” Williams has admitted, almost 30 years after leaving Take That for a solo career. “I could fall off at any moment and a lot of the time I do. So when Michael came to the house and said, ‘Let’s have you be a monkey,’ instantly I felt that it was the biggest swing that could ever happen for this movie. I loved the risk that he was taking so much, and I knew we had to go with it.”
He’s also hoping fans Down Under go with the concept in the film, which was largely filmed here – somewhere he calls his “adopted home”.
Where to watch Better Man
Better Man will be released in theatres across Australia from December 14, 2024. We’ll keep you updated on any news about when the movie will be available to watch on streaming platforms.