Robbie Williams has shared how he thinks Liam and Noel Gallagher will react to their depiction in his upcoming biopic Better Man.
READ MORE: Better Man review: Robbie Williams’ strange, simian biopic
Williams and the film’s director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) have spoken to NME about the biopic, which will be released on Boxing Day. Notably, Williams is played by a CGI monkey, performed by actor Jonno Davies.
Both Gallagher brothers are involved in the film’s story, though Liam appears to a much greater extent than Noel. Williams has said that the film depicts a “representation” of how both he and the Oasis duo were back in the day, albeit with “the edges” taken off.
Williams previously said that partying with Oasis at Glastonbury in 1995 was the “start of his new life” after he left Take That. Relations between them later soured but they appeared to have reconciled in 2020 after Liam reached out to Williams, offering “love n light to your family” after news that Williams’ father had developed Parkinson’s disease. Williams joked that he needs to “find someone new to resent” after the pair patched things up.
Robbie Williams. Credit: Gilbert Flores/Getty
However, Williams claimed in 2022 that they were “bullies” during their heyday. Liam, however, denied this. “I’ve never bullied anyone in my life I’m a massive piss taker for sure and probably gone a little too far sometimes, but if I’ve ever hurt anyone’s feelings I apologise,” he said.
That same year, he joked that he could play Knebworth again if he sold tickets as cheaply as Liam did, pricing tickets for his solo show there at £65. “Can I just apologise for saying the “cheaply” thing – if you write that, can you say I apologise; I was being bitchy,” before adding: “[Knebworth] is not something that’s on my radar. Glastonbury, on the other hand – I’d like to do that.”
Now, Williams has explained what he’s predicting their reaction to be. “I think that there’ll be a bit of him that’s happy that he exists in it,” he said. Did you send him the script Michael?”
“I don’t think Liam’s read it [but] there’s nothing in there that’s not common knowledge,” Gracey replied.
In response, Williams joked: “Uh-oh! There’s not anything there that isn’t 100 per cent factual! That’s how he behaved! That’s the person that he was! And in a court of law, it all stands up!
Continuing more seriously, he added: “I dunno, man. The people that we were are different people than we are right now. I see Liam and I love his interviews, and I love the person that he is becoming. He’s kindly now and introspective and still marvelously funny – but the edges have been taken off. Same with me: the edges have been taken off. So, in the movie, he’s a representation of who he was then and I’m a representation of who I was then. I don’t want him to be upset. I hope he likes it. The guy that plays Noel has only got one line, but that one line is so unbelievably Noel, it’s incredible: ‘Fuck off, cunt!’”
Williams has had plenty to say about Oasis’ recent reunion too. “The soap opera alone will either be exciting and or ghoulish to watch,” he said in September. “As for the shows? They’re gonna be incredible, off-the-scale special,” before going as far as calling it a “healing moment for our country.”
He continued, “Liam Gallagher reading his phone on the toilet would be more charismatic and intriguing than 99.9% of the world’s population at their most enigmatic. All he has to do is stand there and sing for the audience to be guaranteed their money’s worth,” before a slight jibe at his brother: “Noel will be there too.”
He also came to their defense after they were involved in controversy surrounding Ticketmaster’s use of dynamic pricing when the tour dates went on sale.
“I’ve never sat in a ’How much are we pricing the tickets?’ meeting. And I don’t believe that Oasis did either,” Williams told The Face.
“I don’t believe that Oasis knew. Liam definitely didn’t know ’This is how much tickets are going to cost. We’re going to do this thing called dynamic pricing.’ I only know about dynamic pricing because of Oasis.”
In a three-star review of Better Man, NME wrote: “Better Man begins like a John Lewis ad and swerves into an R-rated hodgepodge that somehow does too much while also barely skimming the surface of Robbie Williams’ career. This is ‘Rudebox’ on film: some of it good, some of it very bad, all of it a bit of a mess. Still, the monkey musical is a big swing that no-one else would have taken. You can’t fault the chutzpah or the ambition. If it makes back its reported budget, we’ll eat $110m worth of bananas.”
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