Let’s discuss concerning the monkey within the room.
Like, actually.
Higher Man, Paramount’s new Robbie Williams biopic that premiered at TIFF 2024 this week, had a shock in retailer for filmgoers: Williams is portrayed by… a monkey. Not a metaphoric monkey. Not an occasional dream-sequence monkey. An precise CG monkey. For your complete film. For each stage of Williams’ life. No human actor. Only a simian.
This can be a daring selection. (It sprang from Williams telling director Michael Gracey that he felt like a performing monkey; The Biggest Showman helmer ran with it in a bid to upend the musical biopic.)
After all, the selection comes with some advantages too.
“When folks will say ‘that didn’t occur right here and that didn’t occur right here.’ Effectively I’m not a… monkey, both,” Williams instructed THR in Toronto.
Past preserving the truth-squadders at bay, the film (out late December) will throw a light-weight onto a life that has had extra twists than the A456 west of Newnham Bridge. Raised largely by a single mother and grandmother in a working-class city within the West Midlands, Williams joined the boy band Take That within the early 90’s as a teen, was run out of the group quite a lot of years later for not falling into line, then ended up with a solo profession to rival Oasis and Blur. Alongside the best way there was swagger, fame, dependancy, trauma, failure, redemption, reunion and resurgence. And that Angels track, which you in all probability have heard 100 instances with out realizing you’d heard it, and actually could also be listening to in your thoughts proper now.
Williams and Gracey received collectively at Toronto to speak concerning the film, the pop star’s (form of) mellowing at 50, how Williams is a part of the rationale Hugh Jackman ended up in Biggest Showman and, in fact, that little matter of the reunion of one-time rivals the Gallagher Brothers. Listed below are some highlights. You may watch the complete interview within the unique video above.
On disappointment:
WILLIAMS I assumed [about a decade ago] he was coming to pitch me to be the the lead in Biggest Showman… then he mentioned, “Are you able to name Hugh Jackman and ask him to do it?”
On the, um, animalistic strategy:
GRACEY Rob would consult with himself as a performing monkey and I simply thought to myself, “That’s what i’d love to look at. To not solely have Rob inform the story however to inform it from his standpoint and to see him not as we see him however how he sees himself.”
On his demon-wrestle with impulse management:
WILLIAMS “It’s higher than it was. Approach higher than it was… However it’s great that the movie doesn’t wrap it up for you in a bow. As a result of that’s not… life. That’s not what occurs.”
On what Williams desires from the subsequent stage of his profession:
WILLIAMS I need one other chew on the apple…It [would] give me the chance to expertise omnipresence and success in a manner that I didn’t expertise it earlier than when there was minus pleasure, the place there was nothing derived from it apart from cash…a greater jail to be locked in.
On why a musical suited this story:
GRACEY My rule is you sing when phrases not suffice so it tends to be in moments of maximum euphoria or depths of despair… The wonderful factor about Rob’s life is there’s no scarcity of depths of despair or moments of euphoria.
On how Williams feels concerning the monkey:
WILLIAMS It’s an enormous swing. There was some focus group in America and it got here again, “Why the monkey?” And I used to be like, “Oh yeah… why the monkey?”
On skilled evolution:
GRACEY Showman was my first movie and also you’re continually attempting to get what’s in your head up on the large display. That is a gigantic journey fraught with 1,000,000 obstacles. And also you simply get higher at it. That is a lot nearer to what’s in my head up on the display.
On the Gallagher Brothers Summer season 2025 live performance tour:
WILLIAMS The fascination with this complete reunion is a bit mawkish… It’s like Evil Knievel. All people desires to see him leap the busses however possibly he received’t… [And] how do you guarantee a tour like that?… Is there insurance coverage you may get for unresolved childhood trauma?
On whether or not he’s put away his beef with the Gallagher Brothers:
WILLIAMS Right here’s one factor you wouldn’t have had in your bingo card in 1999-2002: “Probably the most developed Gallagher brother might be…?” You’d say Noel. [But] Noel continues to be Noel. Liam’s a distinct Liam. He’s modified, and he’s modified for the higher… he’s a sympathetic character.”
One final thought on the monkey:
WILLIAMS I’m an enormous fan of not all the things making sense anyway.
