Robbie Williams has said that his former partner, All Saint’s singer Nicole Appleton and her sister, Natalie, were left in tears after they watched his new biopic Better Man.
The unorthodox film sees Williams play himself but not on screen. Instead, a CGI ape, voiced by Williams, portrays the singer throughout the film, a move which has stunned critics and audiences alike.
The biopic, from The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey, documents Williams’s early beginnings as a part of Take That, to the start of his meteoric and often outlandish solo career, plus his feud with Liam Gallagher and his relationship with Appleton.
Speaking to Deadline, Williams said that both of the Appleton sisters had seen the film and were left devastated by the experience.
“[My ex-girlfriend] Nicole [Appleton] went to see it last week with Natalie, her sister. I FaceTimed them all straight after the film and we all wept together,” he said.
The pair dated from 1997 until 1999. In that time, the couple got engaged and were expecting a baby. However, the child was aborted following pressure from All Saints’ record company, an ordeal which is covered in the film.
Writing in her 2002 autobiography, Appleton said: “I couldn’t believe what I had done. I wanted to kill myself. Afterwards, everyone pretended it hadn’t happened.”
Appleton had spoken to Williams before the content of the book was released, which he supported, telling her that she was “brave” but that he was also “really upset” and that it “tore me apart a little bit,” as per BBC.
Elsewhere, in his Deadline interview, Williams said that he was scared of showing the film to his ex-Take That bandmates.
“I’m terrified because our relationship is so complicated and so healed that returning to the scene of the crime and talking in the way that I talked as a 17-year-old is bound to open old wounds for people,” said the 50-year-old.
Williams also said: “I don’t know how Liam [Gallagher]’s going to behave about being in the film. It’ll be interesting.”
Gracey, who previously teased the biopic would be “out of the ordinary”, employed the same WETA FX artists who worked on the Planet of the Apes franchise to bring the monkey to life.
For the film, Jonno Davies is the one who wore the motion-capture suit – Andy Serkis-style – to capture the monkey’s movement, and he also provides the voice for all of the spoken dialogue. Meanwhile, Williams himself sings on the tracks in the film.
Gracey told Deadline back when the film was first announced: “As for how we represent Robbie in the film, that bit is top secret. I want to do this in a really original way. I just want the audience to… think, ‘I’ve never seen this before’.
