Robbie Williams Would Like to Reintroduce Himself
“Who is Robbie Williams?” That’s the question the British pop star poses in the opening and closing moments of his new biopic, Better Man. At home in the U.K., he needs no introduction. After rising to fame as a teenager in Take That, one of the most successful British boy bands of the ’90s, Williams — widely considered to be the bad boy of the group — went on to forge a solo career that reached stratospheric heights. He’s enjoyed 14 No. 1 albums in the U.K., won 13 BRIT awards as a solo artist, and broken records with his concert ticket sales. But while Williams has built loyal fan bases around the world, his success has never quite translated to the U.S. market. Now, Williams has a chance to make a first impression — again.
Much like how Pharrell Williams broke the biopic mold last year by having his story told with Legos in Piece by Piece, Robbie Williams — never one to be confined by tradition — is portrayed by a CGI monkey in Better Man. Actor Jonno Davies delivered the lines and motion-captured moves, but the audience sees an anthropomorphic monkey. It was the film’s director, Michael Gracey (best known for The Greatest Showman), who approached Williams with the inspired idea. “I thought it was brilliant, genius, and high f-ckery,” Williams tells me over Zoom from Los Angeles, his second home. It’s the morning after the Golden Globes, which he attended as a first-time nominee, for the movie’s closing track, “Forbidden Road.” (The song was also shortlisted for an Academy Award, but was later disqualified due to not meeting the required criteria.)
Read More: Robbie Williams Confronts His Darkest Moments in His 2023 Netflix Documentary
When Williams initially received his invite to attend the first-time nominee luncheon in December, alongside the likes of Wicked’s Ariana Grande and Emilia Pérez’s Zoe Saldaña, he intended to decline. “I said to my wife, ‘I’m not going. It’s a bit pick me.’ And she then reminded me that I’m the voice and face of Felix the cat food, so I was like, ‘Yeah, OK, let’s go,’” he says with his trademark candor. As for the awards show itself, Williams has mixed feelings. While he enjoyed the ceremony, he was less inspired by the red carpet beforehand. “Giant f-ckery. Huge disorganization,” he says. “There was this huge line, like it was for Space Mountain at Disney, to do the step and repeat [publicity picture]. Normally, I’d go, ‘F-ck this’ and walk in, but I’m heavily promoting my film, and I’m really proud of it.” So he grudgingly got in line, next to Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Ewan McGregor, and Salma Hayek.
Now 50 and a dad of four, Williams appears to view the only industry he’s ever known as both beautiful and beastly. “I embrace the madness fully, but honestly, it’s a sh-t show,” he says.
Better Man showcases the extreme highs and devastating lows of Williams’ life and the industry that raised him. During one early scene where a young Robbie is watching Frank Sinatra perform on TV, we see his dad, an aspiring stand-up comic and singer, tell him: “You can’t learn it. You’re either born with it or you’re a nobody.” Williams later wonders what “it” is and desperately worries that he might end up as a nobody. His dad soon leaves to pursue his own dreams, shifting the family dynamic and setting forth a complex father-son relationship. In later scenes, we see Williams struggle with addiction, his body image, and incessant thoughts of self-loathing, all while portraying himself as a happy-go-lucky cheeky chap — or cheeky monkey, as it were — to the rest of the world. The on-screen pop star strives to decipher who he really is, and the audience is taken on the same journey as we watch him evolve.
Ahead of the film’s nationwide release in the U.S., Williams discussed his no-holds-barred biopic, the healing nature of confronting past behaviors, and how telling his authentic story unavoidably caused discomfort for others.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
TIME: I’m curious to know how you’re feeling about Better Man being widely released in the U.S. Have you considered how this will translate to a U.S. audience, who perhaps may be less familiar with your story than those of us in the U.K.?
Williams: I can’t help, because I’m a human, to get on board the expectation train and follow everybody else’s lead that is invested in this movie, both financially and emotionally. I am no less ambitious than I’ve ever been. I think it would be novel and exciting to get to show off for a North American audience on a scale that I’ve not been able to, ever. I wonder, if that doesn’t come to pass, how it will make me feel. As it is with my job, I am waiting for the general public to allow me to exist and that is a scary place to be. And it’s not lost on me as a 50-year-old that I need to sort this out.
I watched your 2023 Netflix docuseries, in which you spoke openly about how your attempt to cross over into the American market as a solo artist didn’t go to plan. They didn’t understand you and your personality. Does it feel different this time around?
I think there’s so much onus, especially for Brits, to “break America.” As a Brit, I think we’re contrarians. Like, “You’re not going to tell me what’s important to my career without my consent.” I don’t consent to the onus being put on this. Why isn’t it really important to break Japan? That being said, I don’t like it being used as a tool to pinpoint when [people are] successful. In the aspect of my career, it’s: “And he didn’t break America.” For the chance to go, “F-ck off, d-ckheads.” That’s the only reason why I want to it. I don’t think that’s a good enough reason, but it’s a reason all the same.
I hear you. Are people having a conversation somewhere right now about whether they can “break England?” I wonder if it’s because we grew up with so many American films and American culture is so prevalent over here. It’s a weird relationship we have with it.
Yeah, it is. If I look at it as a well individual, which I’m not, it’s like, “How much fame do you want and how much money do you need?” Because that’s all it means, is extra fame. I’m addicted to success. The hole will never be filled, but still I persevere. I would love to be able to show off in North America and do shows over here and have them embrace me just to scratch an itch. But I’ve been to the top of the mountain before and I had an existential crisis, saying, “What does it all mean?”
From watching the documentary, I know that it ultimately ended up being a good thing for you, not being well known in America, as you were able to seek refuge there from the spotlight.
I genuinely think that I don’t know if I’d be here [without it]. It was a very different time, with very different aspects of a sociopathic industry, leaching from you by any means necessary, most of them illegally. And if they weren’t illegal, they should have been. I made a grown-up decision and chose to live in anonymity in North America for the last 25 years, so I can be Bruce Wayne here and Batman everywhere else.
I want to pick up on the Bruce Wayne/Batman thing, as it reminds me of something from the film. Throughout Better Man, there’s a distinction made between Robert Williams — the boy who once sat on the sofa, eating crisps with his nan — and Robbie Williams — this pop star character. Do you still recognize those as two separate entities within you or are they one and the same now?
I don’t think they’re one, but I don’t think there’s such a distinction now. In parts of my career, it was definitely really important to have Robbie — the singer, pop star — and Robert — the sovereign individual off-stage — just for my sanity. Right now, that doesn’t matter. With the acceptance of myself and the industry, and the gratitude towards my job, it means that both of them are, I suppose, more one than they’ve ever been. And I know people get accused, quite rightly, of talking about themselves in the third person, but everybody who knows me has an opinion about me in the third person, and it’s not who I am, so I get to do it, too, thanks.
It was intriguing to see the early, pre-fame days of Take That on display. The sense of brotherhood was evident, but the contention between your younger self and Gary Barlow is clear from the offset. Your narration is double-edged — you thought of Gary as a genius, but also as a “d-ckhead” in old trainers. You’ve said that when Gary saw the first iteration of the script, he felt he came across quite badly, so you revised certain elements. Given that you’re both in a better place now, were you keen to have his sign-off before moving forward?
I love Gaz and I sent it to him to give him a heads-up. It’s a very, very difficult situation to be in. The most important aspect for me is to be able to tell my story authentically, but also, if I tell my story authentically, Gaz, in particular, gets thrown under the bus. Our relationship now is at a place where there are just scabs. The wound isn’t open. We’re friends and there’s mutual love and respect. But in telling the story, which is a tool that is needed to prolong my career, I found it more important to tell my story authentically than to actually look after Gaz. Because my whole career and well-being is telling you exactly what I see in front of me, without having to edit myself. The script did change after Gaz’s response, because he was really upset and so there was a change for his sake.
Has revisiting those days made you more understanding of why you and Gary clashed in the first place? From how things were depicted in the film, it seems like you were almost pitted against one another at certain times by your manager and others. A lot of the tension appeared to come from outside pressures…
There was very much a divide-and-conquer get-up happening. We weren’t made to feel safe with each other. You know, the last century was the last century. We didn’t know so much about mental health and about what is needed for a conducive working atmosphere. Great lengths have been made to change that in the last 15 years. The pendulum has swung so massively one way now, that it’s brought its own neuroses and intricate problems, but back then, there was none of that, it was the dark ages for toxicity in the workplace, and I don’t think that anybody can be held to account for what they didn’t know.
One last note on Gary, I chuckled when we saw his stately home and the butler at the door. I thought it was surely an embellishment for the film, but a swift Google search told me he did, in fact, have a butler at one time. Brilliant!
Oh yeah, he had a butler called Maurice. I had 74 grand in the bank, and I was still living at my mum’s house, and Gaz would turn up for promo with all of his clothes individually wrapped in tissue paper. He had a manor house, several cars, and a swimming pool. And I had a contract out on me to kill me and couldn’t move my mum out of the house we grew up in. A lot of the stuff that would, quite rightly, cause contention, wasn’t Gaz’s fault. It’s not his fault he wrote the songs and made millions before we [the rest of the band] made anything. But that did happen and that’s gonna cause a problem.
We get an intimate look at the relationship between yourself and your ex-fiancée Nicole Appleton [of All Saints fame], including the difficult period when Nicole had an abortion. I know you had Nicole at the U.K. premiere. What was it like having her watch the film, and did you get a chance to talk about it after?
Nicole saw a pre-screening of it before the premiere. I was in Switzerland and she was in London watching it, and I was counting down the minutes so that I could FaceTime her. Here’s the fact of the matter: Nic has a pure heart. She’s a kind person. She met an out-of-control, alcoholic, drug addict at a point in his life where he was unconscious. My unconscious way of being meant that I acted in a way that was unbecoming to the person that I wanted and needed to be. So I treated her really badly. One of the beautiful aspects of this project for me is I get to make things right on such a grandiose level. I’ve got to say, “I’m sorry.” In return, she has told me, “It doesn’t matter. I love you anyway.”
Oasis are also depicted in the film in a rather amusing scene. The “Oasis vs. Robbie” feud headlines were prevalent in the press when I was growing up. But this biopic offers another side. We see that you were actually a fan of theirs and admired them before everything turned.
I still am [a fan]. When it comes to Oasis, they became the poster childs of bullies. They were not the worst, but they represented it because they were the most omnipresent. Whether Noel and Liam know it or not, whether they like to understand it or care, they gave every schoolground bully permission to grow up and still be bullies by the way that they acted and behaved. Liam has very much evolved and softened, But Noel, still, in this aspect of his life, remains unevolved, when it comes to just being unnecessarily cold, malicious, and unkind about people that have done nothing to him other than exist. And as a way of promoting his albums, he still lashes out at the most successful people in the industry.
Now, back in the day, when both were at it, for whatever reason, I was like, “If no one else is gonna f-cking step up to them, I will.” But I think everyone was either smarter than me, scared of them, or both. In the ’90s, it was deemed to be cool, it was lauded and applauded, and I think we grew up in a time where that energy was exciting and entertaining. And, may I say, more interesting than the vanilla aspect of the whole industry that we have now. I don’t know which one I prefer.
Your family connections help form the heart of the film. We see really tender moments between yourself and your nan. As with any biopic, there’s not room to mention everything, so how important was it to include those grounding moments between a young Robbie and his nan?
It was important for Michael Gracey to have the story move forward. Yet again, I think all aspects of the frontward-facing media is manipulation. And in my story, there is a beautiful manipulation to evoke emotion. Much like the heartfelt stories from The X Factor or renovation shows, everything is done to elicit some form of empathy or compassion. Sometimes it’s done for nefarious purposes. Sometimes it’s done to produce magic. And I would like to think that my film manipulates people to produce magic.
The other pivotal relationships in Better Man are between yourself and your parents. The relationship between you and your dad is especially complex. Has the film prompted you to have real-life conversations with your dad about the past? How does he feel about the way he’s been depicted?
My mum hasn’t seen it. She’s got dementia [like my nan in the film] and doesn’t know what’s going on. But with my dad, he’s feeling confused because he hasn’t seen it yet either, but he’s read about it. He’s got Parkinson’s and can’t get out of bed [which is why he hasn’t seen it], and I’m doing what we’ve done all of our lives, which is to put our heads in the sand and not talk about it. It’s a highly unusual aspect of, I would say, Northern [English] relationships. Because the people that came before us were from just after the war, and as Brits, what we did then and what we do now is not talk about anything. Up until there’s a biopic about your life that’s cost $120 million and is being broadcast to the whole of the world depicting the relationships that you haven’t talked about with the people that you’re having the relationships with. It’s uncomfortable.
The hilarious and sad thing for my dad, is that this is the story told through my mum’s eyes. So what is depicted may not have happened, but my mum’s version of the events is way more cinematic than my dad’s version [laughs]. Hey, ho. You take the rough with the smooth. Everybody’s had a great ride living in the shadows of their son’s success, and this bit is the rough.