Robbie Williams hopes that being portrayed as another type will help audiences see his humanity.
In the musical biopic directed by Michael Gracey A better manpremiering December 25 in theaters, the 18-time Brit Award winner's story is told through actor Juno Davies, in the form of a CGI chimpanzee, whose “MO was cheeky,” Williams explained.
“What's cheekier than a cheeky monkey?” He told the Associated Press. “I've been a cheeky monkey my whole life. There's no monkey more cheeky than the coke-snorting, sex-addicted monkey we find in the movie.
“We care more about animals than we do about humans, most of us,” Williams added. I think 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'll think: Does he look like him? Does he act like him? Does he talk like him?
The Take That previously referred to Deadline on his primate avatar as a “very special magic trick,” explaining: “It desensitizes you and desensitizes you all at the same time. We have deep compassion and empathy with animals, much more than we do with humans .
Robbie Williams attends A A better man Special showing on November 13, 2024 in New York, NY. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)
Gracey also told Deadline how the idea to cast Williams as a chimpanzee came about after interviewing him several times over the course of a year. “I felt like there was a more creative way to go into this particular story,” he said. A better man Compared to other music biographies.
“So I went back to those recordings, and when I was listening to them, I would find Rob often saying that he was being dragged into performing, like a monkey, or that it didn't really matter,” Gracey said. “He was in the back performing like a monkey. He said it enough times that I said: 'Oh, that's how he sees himself.' He literally sees himself as a performing monkey. And I thought: 'That would be great;' I would love to see this movie. That's where the idea came from.”
