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Movie critics have been left blindsided after discovering who performs Robbie Williams in a biopic about his life.
The highlight is positioned on the “Let Me Entertain You” and “Rock DJ” singer in a brand new movie titled Higher Man, which premiered at Telluride Movie Competition on Monday (2 September).
Virtually one 12 months after the discharge of a Netflix documentary sequence about Williams’s life, the movie, whose title is taken from a single launched in 2000, tells the story of his rise to fame in boyband Take That earlier than embarking on a profitable solo profession.
These sitting down to observe the movie, although, had been left shocked after realising that, within the movie, Williams is performed by a CGI monkey.
“The opposite factor that units Higher Man other than the remainder of its ilk – and this may be too delicate for some individuals to note– is that Williams is performed by a computer-generated monkey for the complete movie. Please be at liberty to learn that sentence once more if it’s worthwhile to,” IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote in his assessment.
Writing for The Playlist, Gregory Ellwood mentioned: “Williams is portrayed as a monkey. Everybody else within the film is, successfully real-life human beings, however, sure, Williams is portrayed as a monkey like an actor who simply walked off the digital set of any current Planet of the Apesmovie.
The headline for Peter Debruge’s Variety assessment reads: “Robbie Williams Biopic Would Be a Snooze, however for the Wild Option to Depict Him as a Chimp.”
In the meantime, Little White Lies’s Hannah Robust wrote on X/Twitter: “One other stunning morning excited about the Robbie Williams Biopic The place He Is Performed By A CGI Chimp.”
Director Michael Gracey (The Best Showman), who beforehand teased the biopic could be “out of the odd”, employed the identical WETA FX artists who labored on the Planet of the Apes franchise to convey the monkey to life.
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For the movie, Jonno Davies is the one who wore the motion-capture go well with – Andy Serkis-style – to seize the monkey’s motion, whereas Williams himself offered the voice.
Gracey instructed Deadline again when the movie was first introduced: “As for the way we characterize Robbie within the movie, that bit is prime secret. I wish to do that in a extremely unique approach. I simply need the viewers to… assume, ‘I’ve by no means seen this earlier than’.
It’s mentioned that the choice to depict him as a CGI primate is because of the singer’s perception that, when he walks on stage, he’s basically a performing monkey.
Higher Man, an Australian-American manufacturing, doesn’t but have a UK launch date. It co-stars Steve Pemberton, Alison Steadman and Damon Herriman.
