DUBAI: “I want to be the best entertainer on the planet next year,” British singer-songwriter Robbie Williams said ahead of the UAE premiere of his biographical musical “Better Man” on Sunday.
And he is certainly making inroads on that resolution — fresh off a gig at Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Nights concert series, and before he hits the stage on the Robbie Williams Live 2025 tour across Europe, Williams sat down to discuss the Michael Gracey-directed film in Dubai.
It is a raw look at Williams’ life — his early showbiz years as a part of the Take That crew, his battle with addiction and family issues before settling down.
In the film, helmed by Gracey of “The Greatest Showman” fame, Williams is played by a CGI-generated monkey in an otherwise human cast. It was a creative gamble by the director, who previously said that the decision was inspired by conversations with Williams where he described himself as a performing monkey, according to the BBC.
“Well, I think that I would like to see myself as a lion, but I’m not. I’m cheeky and I’m silly, and I’m irreverent and I’m naughty, and I’m not alpha. I am a monkey. There’s vulnerability in monkeys, in apes, simians; I think they’re more human than humans,” Williams said during a media roundtable attended by Arab News.
In the film, the chimp is played by Jonno Davies, but there is an element of Williams in it. “I was in a cage, and 150 cameras, or something like that, (pointed at) you. And they scanned me, and then I had to do 120 different facial expressions to a bunch of cameras in front of me, and then they took all of that information and overlaid it over Jonno, who plays me so brilliantly, and those are my eyes, and those are my expressions,” he said.
UK 50-year-old pop superstar Robbie Williams says “best thing about fame is that it gives me the chance to be successful.” (Supplied)
While the movie offers a warning of sorts about the pitfalls of fame, the “Let Me Entertain You” singer explained: “I’m addicted to success more than I’m addicted to fame. I excel in showmanship; it’s the rest of everything else I’m not very good at. So, fame gives me the opportunity to be successful, to write a great song, to have it translate into people’s hearts, but to do stadiums, too.
“But this brings with its own problems as well, because, you know, I’ve got so much wrapped up in being Robbie Williams. The best thing about fame is that it gives me the chance to be successful.”
The 50-year-old pop superstar has been candid about his struggles with addiction in the past — he was admitted to a rehabilitation center in the US in 2007 and spoke about his addiction to drugs and alcohol during the 1990s in a four-part Netflix documentary released in 2023.
