The British singer is the subject of a film like no other in which he is played by a chimpanzee.
No less than five people, including Robbie Williams himself, joined forces to play this fiery hero.
The absolutely stunning result can be seen in cinemas this Wednesday, January 22.
Robbie Williams himself admits that we “saw a lot”. In recent months alone, musical biopics have set the pace in cinemas, where spectators have been able to discover the lives of Charles Aznavour, Bob Marley and Amy Winehouse. At the end of January, Bob Dylan with Timothée Chalamet will compete at the box office. So to stand out, it’s better to aim for originality. “We need people to talk about Better Man and they do it because of the monkey”slips us the English singer, who offers a film as daring as him in the improbable leading role.
The same team as Gollum and the Na’vi from “Avatar”
The idea of transforming Robbie Williams into a chimpanzee on the big screen didn’t come out of nowhere. Director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) dug into the words the singer shared with him, recording their conversations in which the former Take That member delivered his best anecdotes about his rise to success.
“Rob would say things like ‘I’m in the back dancing like a monkey’ or ‘I was completely in a funk, but they dragged me on stage to act like a monkey,’ the filmmaker recalls in the production notes. After a while I thought it would be great to portray him as a monkey in the film because that’s how he sees himself.”.
“When you put a monkey in a scene, you can’t help but be drawn to him, even if he doesn’t speak. It perfectly encapsulates what it’s like to be a star. You can’t look away from this person”continues Michael Gracey. To create his larger-than-life double of Robbie Williams, the Australian director called on special effects specialists from New Zealand, Wētā, famous for having created the Na’vi ofAvatarGollum in Lord of the Rings or even Caesar in Planet of the Apes.
The technique is the same as that used by Zoe Saldaña or Andy Serkis: motion capture. Robbie Williams, who is also the narrator of his biopic, was the first to try it out, putting on a gray jumpsuit covered in diodes and having his face covered with around fifty markers to reproduce his facial expressions as best as possible digitally.
A casting at the last minute… five days before filming
But who could possibly play the singer hiding under the monkey? The director confesses that the casting process was “difficile”. Ten days before starting, the film still did not have its main actor. Kate Mulvany, chosen to be the mother of Robbie Williams, mentions the name of Jonno Davies, with whom she had just played in the series Hunters alongside Al Pacino.
Five days later, he was hired after an express audition in Australia, where the film was shot. A dream role for the 32-year-old English actor who was only 9 when he saw Robbie Williams in concert near his home, in Milton Keynes, north of London. “He was simply the symbol of cool, and that stuck with me for a long time… He was like the rock star of the time to me”he slips to the BBC (new window).
On his social networks, Jonno Davies shares images from the shoot where we see two cameras attached to the helmet he wears on his head. “They captured all my micro-movements, hence the 101 points I had fixed all over my body every morning. The monkey was the canvas, but I was the painter”he assures in the production notes.
-“Watching him do his thing – which is my thing – was very interesting, confusing, wonderful and weird to watch. He’s incredible.”reacts Robbie Williams to the BBC. The magic finished working in post-production, where the final picture came to life also for young Asmara Feik and Carter J. Murphy, who share the role of young Robert.
A breathtaking vocal double
Having passed through the theater, Jonno Davies interprets it “from the age of 15 until the end of the film”. “It’s the body, the voice, the dance, the whole mess”he tells the BBC. The thirty-year-old worked on his mimicry with his elder, from his gestures to his diction. But for singing, he gave way to another artist from Norfolk. Adam Tucker’s name appears on the soundtrack of Better Man. Robbie Williams’ greatest hits which punctuate the film, like “Angels”, “Feel” or “Come Undone”, were re-recorded with the help of this English musician without even the purists realizing it.
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Robbie Williams talks about himself in the cinema: “My children don’t deserve the chaotic monkey that I was”
“Millions of people have heard me sing, but only a small percentage of them know that they have actually heard me sing”comments for the BBC (new window) Adam Tucker, whose voice mixes with that of the star to best represent his evolution through the eras.
Robbie Williams, on the other hand, is well credited alone on the songs “Rock DJ”, “Something Beautiful” and “Forbidden Road”, a new track composed for the needs of the film and a herald of a new album from the enfant terrible of pop. English.
