Robbie Williams hopes 'Better Man' seals long-held bid for worldwide fame

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Robbie Williams has sat through countless screenings of Better Man, a new biopic that chronicles the tumultuous life of the British pop star. But in his mind, so far there’s one reaction that has guaranteed the film will hit the right note with moviegoers.

“I remember the first time watching the movie looking to my left and right to see if my friends were crying. I knew if they were crying it was going to be a hit,” Williams, 50, tells Postmedia in an interview. “All my mates were in bits and I was left with thinking, ‘Thank God this is a great movie.'”

Better Man, which is now playing in select theatres and opens across Canada this Friday, charts Williams’ meteoric rise from obscurity as one of the singers in Take That to his career as a solo artist who has sold more than 75 million records worldwide.

Williams’ own reaction to the Golden Globe-nominated film differs with each viewing, but he’s always emotional watching parts of his life unfold on the big screen. “Every time I watch it, I feel like if I start crying I may not stop,” he admits.

The no-holds-barred journey captures Williams’ messy relationship with his father (played by Steve Pemberton) and his fall from grace. It also charts the newfound resurgence of the British pop superstar, who is popular in almost every corner of the world except North America. To underscore this point, this week in Australia, Williams was one of the notable entertainers who was on hand to help ring in the New Year in Sydney.

But the film is a twist on the musical biopic genre. Williams is portrayed as a computer-generated chimpanzee. Filmmaker Michael Gracey, who helmed the 2017 musical smash The Greatest Showman, wanted to try something different in telling Williams’ story.

Instead of being scared of the idea, the Angels singer, who narrates the feature, embraced the wild concept of sharing the ups and downs of music stardom with the help of Weta’s motion capture technology and the actor Jonno Davies.

“Before (Gracey) got to the end of the sentence, I was totally in. I want everything I do from here on in to be slightly unusual and this is way past slightly unusual,” Williams chuckles. “This was a seven-year project. I had built it up so much in my head that when I sat down and the film started I thought, ‘What if this is crap?’ So to watch it and to have all of my wildest dreams fulfilled was an exhale.”

It was his wife, X Factor judge Ayda Field, that took some convincing.

“I would say to her, ‘Guess what, everyone’s human and I’m a CGI monkey,’ and she wasn’t onboard,” Williams laughs, recounting her initial reaction to the pitch. “She had the casting vote and she’s the ministry of finance. But fortunately, once she saw some clips, she came onboard heavily and she’s now a big fan.”

Gracey, who helped develop the 2019 Elton John biopic Rocketman, said he became intrigued about adapting Williams’ life story for the big screen after the two worked together on The Greatest Showman.

“That’s how we knew each other. We had conversations after that, and in those conversations Rob would talk about his life … And after speaking to him I was aware that there was a great story in Rob’s life,” Gracey says.

Initially Gracey, who co-wrote the film with Simon Gleeson and Oliver Cole, had no plans to direct the musical biopic.

“As time went on, I started to record the stories Rob was telling me,” he recalls. “Whenever I was in Los Angeles, I would visit with him. Wherever our paths intersected, we would have these conversations.”

Thanks to the success of Rocketman and the Oscar-winning Bohemian Rhapsody, which centre on the life of Freddie Mercury and Queen, investors were receptive to the idea of mining Williams’ crushing experience with fame.

But they bristled when they heard a pitch that included mentions of a CGI monkey.

“It was so hard to convince people because it was a huge commitment financially,” Gracey says. “But when we found someone and convinced them, you knew they were in.”

Even though Williams is now a reformed bad boy, who is clean and sober with four kids at home, Better Man doesn’t shy away from showing the depravity of his behaviour and the harsh way he treated former girlfriend Nicole Appleton during the course of their relationship.

“Fans are going to sit there and be able to enjoy it,” Williams says. “They know that I am crippled with insecurity and need affection, need compassion, need empathy and need love — probably more than most people because I have a sensitivity dysphoria or whatever it is.”

The two-time Grammy nominee is more interested in seeing how people who don’t know who he is receive the film. Williams is also hoping that Better Man serves to reintroduce his music to audiences in North America.

“That’s the reason I’m doing this whole thing. I want to be Mr. Worldwide,” he quips.

When I point out that I knew people who liked his music, Williams breaks into a grin. “Who ‘liked me.’ Boom … there’s the problem. This facilitates the third act of my career where more people can like me, present tense.”

Even if the film doesn’t move the needle to increase Williams’ popularity in Canada and America, he’s already got his eye on what comes next.

“I’m going to be incredibly busy. I’ve got an empire to build. I’m building buildings, literally. I’m writing TV shows. There’s clothing. I want to build a university. There’s hotels,” he says. “I want to see how far I can push my luck.”

mdaniell@postmedia.com