UK pop legend Robbie Williams joins 'Better Man' director Michael Gracey to give us an inside look at how the unconventional biopic came into being – plus Noel and Liam Gallagher's sweary cameos.
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00:00My dad was well enamoured by the stars of the day.
00:03You can't learn it. You're either born with it, or you're a nobody.
00:07There's an angel
00:09Don't want to be a nobody.
00:11Contemplate my fate
00:14You're enough.
00:16Hello, you're watching NME. I'm Jordan Bassett, and we're here with pop megastar Robbie Williams and director extraordinaire Michael Gracie.
00:23Well, we're here to talk about Better Man, the fabulous Robbie Williams biopic directed by your good self, Michael.
00:30The headline on this, I think, is that Robbie's played by a CGI monkey, which has probably been mentioned once or twice today, I would have thought.
00:38So I understand this came about because, Michael, you originally asked Robbie what his spirit animal was.
00:45And Robbie, you said...
00:47Lion.
00:48Lion. Why a lion?
00:49Because I was trying to get some self-worth for myself at the time, that particular day, and still every day.
00:55So, chin out, chest out, lion.
00:57And Michael just went...
00:59I went, monkey?
01:00He went, yeah.
01:01Okay.
01:02And then pitched me the idea, and I was totally in.
01:05Why monkey?
01:06Because that's it, isn't it?
01:08I'm a cheeky monkey, aren't I?
01:09Yes.
01:10Famously.
01:11I think if there was, you know, on Family Fortunes, we asked 100 people what animal is Robbie Williams, the people that, you know, don't hate me would probably go, he's a monkey.
01:23The question I should have started with is, why did you want Robbie to be an animal in the first place?
01:26I think that it was trying to find a way of approaching the film that was lensing it for a way that would be more creative and have more impact.
01:37Taking it from an audience point of view, I just wanted something that was going to be more interesting.
01:41When I came up with that idea, it just really made me smile.
01:44And I genuinely thought, and I believe even more so now, that you see more of Robb in the monkey than you would if it was an actor playing him.
01:53Right, yeah, that makes sense.
01:55And also, it's Robb's eyes.
01:57We did high-res scans of Robb's eyes.
02:00So, it is actually, in all those close-ups, it's Robb looking out at you.
02:03No way, okay.
02:05Not just in terms of the monkey, but, you know, you show a lot of dark elements in this film.
02:10And a lot of other biopics, and no shade on them, but like, Bohemian Rhapsody is a kind of cleaned-up version of the Queen story, right?
02:16So, why did you not want to go down that route and do a sort of cleaner, you know, give it a 12A, get it a family-friendly version of the story?
02:26Yeah, I mean, Robb's life is not family-friendly.
02:29I haven't lived a PG life, neither had Freddie Mercury, but also, you know, there's three members of that band that need to okay things.
02:37There's less people to go through to get to me.
02:40And also, you know, one of my strengths being ADHD and neurodivergent and being on the spectrum is I don't pick up the cues with the stuff that you're not supposed to say.
02:53Until the thing that I've said reaches the person's ears that I've said it to, and they go, and I go, did I do a thing?
03:02I think it's, you know, my autism, I suppose, is a useful tool for a filmmaker that wants to exploit that.
03:12I genuinely believe, not about exploitation, but I genuinely believe that when you go to those darker moments, you feel the light so much more.
03:24And that's in the narratives that I love watching.
03:27All That Jazz, you know, these films are just fantastic because they don't shy away from showing the darker moments.
03:33And I think it's more relatable as well because we as an audience go, we've also done things we're ashamed of.
03:39We've done things that we don't want to talk about, or we've said things we regret.
03:43And to have a film that shows all of that, it's treating the audience with a level of respect.
03:48It makes it a much more engaging experience.
03:52I think we all want to expel the things that live in the dark corners of our minds and memories.
03:57And I'm lucky enough to get to do it on such a grandiose scale.
04:01But I think in some sort of way for me, it's healing.
04:06I may be right, I may be wrong, but so far, so good.
04:10There's lots of depictions of real people in this film.
04:15Robbie, what do you reckon Liam Gallagher's going to make of his role?
04:21I think that there'll be a bit of him that's happy that he exists.
04:27The people that we were are different people than we are right now.
04:34I see Liam, and I love his interviews, and I love the person that he's becoming.
04:40He's kind of kindly now, and introspective, and still marvellously funny.
04:48But the edges have been taken off.
04:51In the movie, he's a representation of who he was then, and I'm a representation of who I was then.
04:57The guy that plays Noel has only got one line, but that one line is so unbelievably Noel, it's incredible.
05:06I can't remember the line.
05:07Fuck off, cunt.
05:09Yeah, but what was the line?
05:13You got in? You're in that band?
05:20I'm getting this fucking baby!
05:24Shut up, you tit!
05:26Fuck off, Glenn!
05:28We were talking about the darker elements of the film.
05:30Were you surprised at how willing Robbie was to go there?
05:33I mean, we know that you're not a person that varnishes things, but...
05:37No, I think that obviously to read it in a script form is one thing,
05:44to see it up on the screen large is another.
05:49So I knew Rob was totally on board with the script,
05:52because he'd read the script and he signed off on the script and we were all set to make that film.
05:57With The Monkey, I think that you have a level of empathy with animals that is different to humans,
06:02and we are very numb cinematically to seeing humans suffer,
06:06whereas there is something deeply unsettling about watching, you know, a monkey snorting Coke.
06:14It's just not glamorous. It's just sort of like, ugh.
06:20I think it's incredibly powerful to have...
06:24That's the kind of Siegfried and Roy show I want to see, though.
06:28Do you know what I mean?
06:30Now the monkey don't Coke!
06:33Go on, carry on.
06:35When you go to those really dark places, and we do go to those dark places,
06:39it's wonderful that Rob didn't shy away from it.
06:44He watched it, and to his credit, and I would tell you, if he made us cut anything,
06:49in fact, this would be my moment to say to everyone,
06:52yeah, there's this great sequence that Rob couldn't handle.
06:55But the truth is, there's not a single shot in the film that Rob took out.
06:59Wow. And what was it like for you, actually, seeing this stuff?
07:03Michael said there that it's different seeing it on a script than it is seeing it on the screen.
07:07Tears, and triggering, and grief, and healing, and ego,
07:14and look at what's happened to me.
07:17It just depends which version of me turns up for the individual screening on that particular day
07:23and how much sleep I've had.
07:26At the minute, I want to take all of this in,
07:30and I want to drink every moment that I can,
07:33because I'm now in a place where I can derive joy from life,
07:37and I couldn't derive any joy from life for such a long time.
07:41And I feel as though I'm getting lucky again, and I'm getting another bite of the apple.
07:45So I'm literally trying to soak it all in.
07:50Before I go, Annamie, you've got to know about the fact that
07:54Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath is allegedly on your new album.
07:57Yeah, and Glenn Hughes as well.
08:00Wow, OK. What's it sounding like?
08:02Like Tony and Glenn playing a Robbie Williams song.
08:05I mean, sold.
08:06Yeah, no, it's... I wanted to make the album that,
08:10if I'd left Take That now, knowing what I know,
08:13what is it that I would have made?
08:15And, you know, because the first album had Let Me Entertain You Are An Angel.
08:18What did I want to make?
08:20And I set out, and this particular song encapsulates that perfectly.
08:24Unfortunately, and fortunately for me,
08:27pop songs turned up along the way too.
08:30And I was like, ah, fuck, a hit.
08:33So this one is Massive Guitars, as you can imagine.
08:37And it's Adrenaline Filled and Balls To The Wall.
08:40That one in particular is my favourite song off my new album
08:44that I've just announced is happening.
08:46When's it out?
08:47I don't know. I don't know.
08:49Let's see how well the film does.
08:50One question that Annamie always likes to ask is,
08:53what is one album that you always go back to?
08:56One album... OK.
08:58So, because we're in film world, I'll pick my film world.
09:02And it's Roy Budd, the soundtrack to Get Carter.
09:07Right, OK. Why is that?
09:09Because it's amazing.
09:10Yeah, no, that's...
09:12It's... Yeah, I love that album.
09:16That's it, man. That's all I've got.
09:18That's all you've got?
09:19Yeah.
09:20What's your favourite song on it?
09:21Searching for someone, I know him gone to bed.
09:26And there's someone, I know you gone to bed.
09:30It is a world, it is.
09:33Somehow I have missed.
09:35Somewhere I know it exists.
09:41Thing is, I don't know what things are called.
09:44You know?
09:45It's like, I know David...
09:47My favourite David Bowie album,
09:49and I know it's called Honky Dory,
09:51but I don't know what any of the songs are called.
09:54Yet, I could sing them all to you,
09:56much like that, with no lyrics, apparently.
10:01I just want to ask you to sing the whole of Honky Dory.
10:04Oh, God, what an album.
10:06All right, well, thank you very much.
10:09The story starts.