Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the scripts fueling the year’s most talked-about movies continues with Better Man, Paramount’s musical biopic based on the true story of the meteoric rise, dramatic fall and resurgence of British pop superstar Robbie Williams. The script was penned by Simon Gleeson, Oliver Cole and Michael Gracey.
Gracey directs the uniquely personal film about Williams, capturing his wit, resilience, and extraordinary journey. From boyband stardom with Take That to a record-shattering solo career, the film explores the highs and lows of his success. And only Williams could get away with telling his life story through the unique lens of a chimpanzee, a truly unexpected perspective that distinguishes this biopic from others.
Gracey explains the inspiration for portraying Williams as a monkey came from Robbie himself.
“Rob would say things like, ‘I’m up the back dancing like a monkey,’ or ‘I was completely out of it, but they were dragging me up on stage to perform like a monkey.’ And after a while, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing to represent Rob as a monkey in the film?’ Because Robbie is telling this story – just as he was telling me the story in those interviews – and that’s how he sees himself.”
Better Man, which world premiered at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, hits select theaters on December 25 before Paramount sends it out wide January 10. The pic has already landed a Critics Choice nomination for its VFX, and the song “Forbidden Road” landed a Golden Globe nomination (though it was disqualified from Oscar Original Song consideration after it had made the shortlist).
Having formed a friendship with Williams during the development of The Greatest Showman, Gracey admired Williams’ captivating and witty storytelling. Gracey recorded their conversations over 18 months, forming the foundation of what became the musical biopic of his life.
In 2019, Gracey teamed with longtime friends and creative collaborators Cole and Gleeson to write the script, and together they developed the themes and expanded the film’s story beats and key musical numbers. But the script never strayed too far from its foundation in those initial voice recordings. “We discussed the recordings and picked out our favorite moments in the stories Rob was telling,” recalls Cole. “Michael then asked us to come to Sydney for 11 days and nights, and we wrote constantly. At the start, it was a bit of a whirlwind process, but it was refreshing to work creatively under that pressure.”
As the trio of co-writers developed the project, it quickly became clear that those early recordings should be utilized in the final film. “The majority of the time you hear Rob in the film it is from those original recordings because even when we tried to re-create them, we couldn’t,” Gracey says. “There’s a certain delivery and conversational manner in which Rob talks in those recordings, which is different to someone being given a script and reading lines.”
RELATED DEADLINE VIDEO:
At its core the film explores family, focusing on Williams’ relationships with his entertainer father Peter Williams (stage name Peter Conway, played by Steve Pemberton); his mother, Janet (Kate Mulvany); and his grandmother, Betty (Alison Steadman). The allure of showbiz proved too strong for Williams’ father, leading him to leave the family.
“In all of Rob’s stories, I was drawn to the father-son aspect of it,” says Gracey. “Someone once said that all rock stars are sons on stage crying out for their dads. But in Rob’s case, he had a unique experience in that he had a father who idolized Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., and his excitement and passion for that music was passed on to Robbie. Narratively, there was something beautiful about a father who doesn’t get to realize his dream, but his son does. And in Rob realizing his dream, he allowed his father to stand on stage in front of thousands of people and perform. It’s a very satisfying, unique and true element to Rob’s story.”
Check out their script below.
