plane, get the pina coladas and the sun loungers ready.’ You know, that’s how I’m feeling. And gratitude and gratefulness. But also bringing that round to Christmas, she is the most Olympic memory maker of all time. And I am the exact opposite of that. I now love Christmas because of my wife, she is the spirit of Christmas, and I’m glad and grateful that she’s given me the gift of Christmas coming back. I’ve found my way back to Christmas and it it’s the most wonderful time of the year, to quote an incredible song.
After watching the film you understand how vulnerable wanting to be loved makes you. So when did you find your voice, so that you understood the power to know you don’t need to be loved and your voice is worthy? Well, I still dramatically need to be loved, and I’m still dramatically sensitive. I am not as brittle as I once was. Is my brittleness akin to maybe part of a mental illness? Yes it is. Am I fixed? Not properly. Will I ever be fixed? No. Did the gift of grounding and sense and purpose and a different perspective arrive once I got married and had children? Yes. Without them, I don’t know who or what I would have been or whether I would be here. But as soon as Teddy arrived, the first one, and now I’ve got four, it was not about me. And, for a raving narcissist like myself, this was startling news.[laughs] So look, we all want to be seen. We all want to be heard. We all want to be loved, and we all want nice things to happen for us. Thanks to grounding, children and my wife.
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Congratulations on the film, people are often seduced by the alure of Showbusiness and the quest for fame. In this you show your vulnerability because there is a price of fame that many don’t understand and the lonliness and pressures that come with it. Sadly we recently lost another musician because of that. Do you hope the movie enlightens younger people who are coming through the business? The bird’s eye view of the film is it’s a human story. And, yes, to the point that you’re bringing up, of course, you know, my story isn’t unique. Nobody comes out of it the other side going, ‘And I’m still a well-rounded individual…’ Something happens. The world warps towards you and you warp towards it - across the board. You don’t get to escape it. If you are lucky enough through a series of self-examination and help and the right people around you, you can come out the other end like I have right now. So 90% of people are thinking subconsciously – ‘If I get all of these things, I will be whole and I will be fixed.’ And what it does is it actually gives you an existential crisis that is unbelievable and, like I say, through a series of self-examination and help you can come through it. What I’m currently experiencing as a 50-year-old at the other end of that arc is what the glamour should have meant and the, I don’t know, the applause and the excitement. I am on my journey in the most namaste way, and I make no apologies - healed, healing. I’m in a separate place than where I was. And good luck to all of those that want to sail in the good ship entertainment - life is exciting, and it is interesting, and it is perplexing, and it is all of those incredible things. But it’s also this other thing that’s not great.
With the film out over Christmas is it a gift to you? and what does Christmas look like in the Williams’ Household? I just sent a text to my wife. And she is beautifully neurotic - which is great for me that’s impulsive and the exact opposite. She’s the grounding where I’m like, ‘Let’s just swing at everything and see if we hit the ball.’ I said, ‘You’ll want to touch wood, but great things are happening right now. Amazing things are happening right now’ - because she’s in the UK and I’m here. I said, ‘I’m just landing the
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How do you see yourself in the future? How do I see myself in the future? Okay. So, older age has become a revelation. And I’m embracing it because of everything that it’s offered me so far. And I would say that my life has dramatically changed in the last five years. It’s taken me too long to get here, but it’s taken the length of time that was needed. Now, if I take what’s happened in the last five years and apply it to what my future looks like, the future looks really good. You know? Each year, each day, each month, it’s getting better and better as I become more grateful and sincerely grateful, and I become more authentic, and I understand myself more. Now, whether that would be an interesting movie, I don’t think it would be. You know, ‘Better Man 2: The Chamomile Years’ [laughs] is not something that people want to see. You know? So we might have to delve back into the pain if this movie is successful. [laughs]
Why do you think no one came to help you on a human level during the midst of your addictions, to take you out of all that? They did. They did eventually. I was very lucky. I’ve been with the same management now for nearly 30 years, God bless them. Tim is the punch and David was and still is, he’s passed away, he is the hug. You know? And he was, when I met him, 10 years sober. And he said, ‘Come here, old boy. This is how you do this.’ And he showed me how to be sober, how to be compassionate, how to be responsible, and how to be a man and be a grown-up. So you’re saying, ‘Why wasn’t there?’ There was. And that is the reason that I’m still alive today. And I wish the same luck to all the people that have come behind me and are in those weeds right now trying to figure it out.
‘Better Man’ takes a raw and honest look at your journey from Childhood to global fame. What was the most challenging of revisiting those deeply personal moments? And did it bring any unexpected clarity about yourself? Yes, you know, a lot of the movie is the greatest hits of grief for the
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