Robbie Williams has revealed he had rewrite the script of his new semi-autobiographical film - after Gary Barlow took issue with it. His movie, Better Man, is based on Angels singer Robbie's meteoric rise to fame as part of boy band Take That, alongside Gary, and his massively successful solo career. It also charts his downward spiral into drug and alcohol addiction and his triumphant return to the spotlight.
The big twist is Robbie, now 50, is played by a chimp - a play on the fact he sometimes feels 'like a performing monkey', which is dividing critics ahead of the film's release in UK cinemas on Boxing Day. Though they 'have a great relationship' now, Robbie told Graham Norton that Gary, 53 - who he had a longstanding feud with after leaving Take That in the Nineties during the middle of a world tour - was not happy with the original script, as he claimed he 'came off worse than Darth Vader in Star Wars.'.
Appearing on the New Year’s Eve episode of The Graham Norton Show on BBC1, Robbie shared: "I sent the first script to Gary Barlow and he phoned me up – we have a great relationship now – and said ‘Rob, I come off worse than Darth Vader in Star Wars’, so we made amendments.
"When you talk about my past it happens to be contentious, and I was a different person then. The film brings all that up again, so it’s super odd, and I can understand how it could be hard for Gary.". But though he wants to stay on good terms with pal Gary, Robbie isn't bothered about anyone else he might offend with the film. He said: “As for the other people I throw under the bus, I don’t care.”.
