Jonno Davies: Last News

Take That star Gary Barlow has shut down rumours that he is to appear as a cameo on his former bandmates biopic, Better Man. The film is based on the life of Robbie Williams and is currently being filmed in Melbourne, Australia.

Music legend Robbie Williams took a cheeky dig at revelers just before Sydney’s iconic fireworks display on New Year’s Eve.The British pop star was the headline act for the night and performed right up until the final countdown.The star admitted that his performance was a chance to promote his biopic “Better Man,” a brainchild of Australian director Michael Gracey.The film has scored six nominations at the 2025 AACTA awards including Best Film, Best Director and Best Lead Actor for Jonno Davies, who plays Williams as a chimp in the film.The film has already scored a Golden Globes nomination for Best Original Song and is short-listed for a nomination on the same category for the Oscars.After performing “Let Me Entertain You” and “Land of 1000 Dances,” Williams began “Me and My Monkey,” but fell silent after the encouraging audience began to sing along.“You made me come in, in the wrong place!” he appears to tell an audience member.“Can you stop doing the lyrics to the song, then I don’t get it wrong?”Williams then resumed the song as if nothing happened.

Better Man, the new semi-biographical film depicted on the life of Robbie Williams is all set to release on Boxing Day (December 26).

Robbie Williams has shared how he thinks Liam and Noel Gallagher will react to their depiction in his upcoming biopic Better Man. 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.

Robbie Williams and director Michael Gracey have spoken to NME about Better Man, the new Williams biopic featuring a CGI monkey (performed by actor Jonno Davies) in the lead role.The duo revealed the logic behind the unusual choice, the film’s no-holds-barred depiction of Williams’ drug and alcohol addictions and why we empathise more with animals than human beings in cinema.Williams also speculated on Liam Gallagher’s reaction to his role in the film and opened up about his forthcoming 13th studio album, which features Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi and British hard-rock legend Glenn Hughes on one track.Robbie Williams: “Lion. I was trying to get some self-worth for myself at the time – and still, every day.

Carolyn Giardina One of the set pieces in director Michael Gracey’s bold Robbie Williams biopic, “Better Man,” is an elaborately choreographed “Rock DJ” number lensed on Regent Street, a major curved street and bustling shopping destination in London’s West End. It was filmed over four consecutive nights with up to 500 extras who dance in the final number with a photoreal CG monkey. That’s right.

Carolyn Giardina The audacious approach to the upcoming Robbie Williams biopic “Better Man” began when the British singer-songwriter referred to himself in an interview as a sort of performing “monkey.” That quip inspired “The Greatest Showman” director Michael Gracey to take a bold approach to his original and entertaining film: telling the story from Williams’ perspective while showing viewers how Williams saw himself—as a performing chimp. To do this, the production enlisted “The Lord of the Rings” visual effects studio Weta FX to create an emotive computer-generated monkey as the lead character.

Robbie Williams has explained why he is played by a CGI monkey in his new biopic Better Man.The semi-autobiographical film, directed and co-writtten by Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman), is due for release in the UK on Boxing Day (December 26) and in select US cinemas on Christmas Day (December 25).When the first teaser for the movie arrived in October, many fans reacted to the unique decision to have a CGI monkey portraying Williams instead of an actor in a live-action role. Some called the move “bonkers”, “completely bananas” and “totally incredible”.During an interview on The One Show last night (November 26), Williams explained that it was an idea of Gracey’s.

Michael Gracey‘s wildly inventive musical biopic of British superstar entertainer Robbie Williams rolls the dice on a unique star casting decision to play Williams which successfully separates it from every showbiz biopic that has come before. A CGI monkey (actor Jonno Davies) plays the singer in what is otherwise a recognizable cradle to a comeback story so familiar to those who rise to the top, only to fall, and then to rise again. This is the equivalent to casting Lassie to play Frank Sinatra. Okay, maybe not that crazy, but close enough. So guess what? It really works, even if in America the subject of this major studio film (Paramount picked up the independently produced production) is not widely known, but an icon who has sold over 80 million albums across the rest of the globe, and was recently the subject of a four-part Netflix docu series. It had its World Premiere this weekend at the Telluride Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: Harry Potter star Tom Felton has boarded Gandhi, the Hansal Mehta-directed streaming series about the iconic Indian nonviolent resistance leader from Applause Entertainment.

Dustin Hoffman has signed on to star in a currently untitled Peter Greenaway movie alongside Helen Hunt (As Good As It Gets) and Sofia Boutella (Kingsman). 

EXCLUSIVE: Principal photography has begun on Better Man, and Deadline has the first image from production. This is the musical feature film based on the life of singer Robbie Williams, with Australian filmmaker Michael Gracey at the helm. Gracey’s debut film, The Greatest Showman, grossed over $435M at the global box office.