Robbie Williams hopes being depicted as one other species will assist audiences see his humanity.
Within the Michael Gracey-helmed musical biopic Higher Man, premiering Dec. 25 in theaters, the 18x Brit Award winner’s story is instructed via actor Jonno Davies, within the type of a CGI chimpanzee, as Williams defined his “MO has been cheeky.”
“What’s extra cheeky than a cheeky monkey?” he stated to the Related Press. “I’ve been a cheeky monkey all my life. There’s no extra cheekier monkey than the coke-snorting, sex-addict monkey that we discover within the film.”
Williams added, “We look after animals greater than we look after people, most of us. I assume there’s a elimination, as effectively. It’s very a lot a human story however should you’re watching it and somebody’s enjoying Robbie Williams, you’re pondering: Does he appear to be him? Does he act like him? Does he discuss like him?”
The Take That alum beforehand instructed Deadline referred to his primate avatar as “a really particular magic trick,” explaining, “It desensitizes and sensitizes you all on the identical time. We now have deep empathy and compassion for animals, far more than we do for people.”
Robbie Williams attends a Higher Man particular screening on Nov. 13, 2024 in New York, New York. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Photos for Paramount Footage)
Gracey additionally recounted to Deadline how the concept arose to depict Williams as a chimp after interviewing him a number of occasions over a yr. “I simply felt there was a extra artistic means of getting into into this specific story,” he stated of Higher Man in comparison with different musical biopics.
“So I went again to these recordings, and after I was listening to them, I discovered Rob saying typically that he was simply dragged as much as carry out, like a monkey, or it didn’t actually matter,” stated Gracey. “He was simply up the again performing like a monkey. And he stated it sufficient occasions that I used to be like, ‘Oh, that’s how he sees himself. He actually sees himself as a performing monkey.’ And I believed, ‘That may be wonderful; I’d like to see that movie.’ That’s the place the concept got here from.”
