by Josie Gagliano
Playing Nicole Appleton in Robbie Williams biopic Better Man is Australian actress Raechelle Banno.
Michael Gracey and Jonno Davies had incredible words to say about you, but they didn’t know that you could dance…
“I realised that I must have undersold myself! I’ve got to have more audacity! I’ve got to talk myself up more! But also, I think, keep those expectations low, because I surprised them, so maybe that’s a good thing. But it was a joy not to have to lie when they asked me if I could dance, and I said ‘yeah, no… I actually can’, but next time I think I have to be a bit more effusive with that…
“It wasn’t in the brief originally that she needed to dance. I wasn’t aware of how big the role was. I assumed that it’s Robbie Williams, he’s this popstar, there’s going to be 100 different women in this film. I just did the scenes that were given to me. It wasn’t really until I met Ash[ley Wallen, choreographer] that I realised the extent of the dance. I assumed it would be a sort of a ‘bop to the side’ for a ‘90s pop dance music video. But it turned out to be a far more extensive, backwards and in heels, Ginger Rogers style dance [laughs].”
Can you discuss how you prepped for the audition, and also how you felt when you knew that you’d won this role?
“I actually had the gift of time to prep. Normally, you get no time, you get maybe 48 hours for an audition. But I had a whole week, which is unheard of, and it gave me the opportunity to dive into Nicole, the history of [her band] All Saints, there were a couple of documentaries that I could watch where I could study her. And she has a particular accent which I auditioned with originally, and the nature of her and Rob, and where her life goes as well, and just trying to get a sense of her sensibility. She had such a profound effect on him at that time.
“I could really only just do my homework, and then play… and the first scene that I did was their ‘meet cute’ scene, which is just the most joyous in the film. It was so playful and cheeky, so it was a joy for me to do. And then I had a call back with Simon Gleeson, one of our writers, and it was the first experience of me getting an invitation to discuss the film, and that was when I learned that went into [the song] ‘She’s The One’, and I thought, oh how sweet, he’s going to serenade her. And he said, ‘no, it’s a duet’. I was a bit taken aback, and didn’t really know what all that was going to be.
“As soon as the conversation started happening, I was really struck by how generous everyone was, both Simon, and Michael eventually when I met him… I didn’t have the role yet, and they were sharing with me the concept art, and videos for certain sequences, and really inviting me to the creative conversation that actors often aren’t invited to, even when they have the job, let alone before they’ve been given the role.
“When the offer came through, I woke up to a very exciting email, and called my whole family, and we have this wonderful FaceTime screenshot of all of us, just in tears of joy.
“The closer I got to actually auditioning, I had the scary but exciting feeling of, ‘I actually think I could do this, I feel really close to the character Nicole’. I hadn’t obviously met her, but I felt like I really understood her, and I felt like I understood the place that they were in at their lives at that time. And it really resonated with me, but that’s scary, because you can get too attached. So, the idea that it was confirmed on their side as well was a real creative validation which I hadn’t experienced very often.”
Playing such an important role in the film must have been really full on.
“I think the idea of Robbie, and his music, and the parts of his story that I was probably too young for a lot of it, but it’s been a part of my life for a long time. I’ve never auditioned for anything that had that kind of emotional gravity, and I found that when I first met Ash, and he played ‘She’s The One’ for me, and we’re figuring out a few bits of choreography, I’d only ever heard ‘She’s The One’ when I watched Knebworth, and he dedicates it to this woman named Kelly in the audience. I’ve watched it 100 times, and all of a sudden, I was the one that Robbie was singing to. And when I left, I leaned against the wall and took a breath, and thought: ‘this is a weird, full circle moment, that I’m involved in the Robbie story, and I’ve been aware of it since I was eight years old’. It’s a lot to take on, but in the most positive way.”
How was it having your twin sister Karina on set as Nicole’s sister Natalie Appleton?
“She was actually there on my very first day on set. It was the first thing that I shot, when All Saints is number one on the charts, and we celebrate at the club, and it was a real moment for us. It’s my first film, and just to be on my first film set, which is a scale that I’d never worked on before, and to have Karina alongside me… to have Karina come down to Melbourne, and be able to be there alongside me playing Natalie, it was this strange uncanny valley of Natalie and Nicole going along on this journey together, and then having Karina right alongside me for this real defining moment in my career. It’s a lot of firsts for me, and to be able to have her there, and to watch her be her confident shining self on set as well, just to know that she really has a place on set. I’m always just so proud of her, so to be able to share that was super special.”
Did you speak to Nicole in prep for the role
“I didn’t speak to her, which I think was a good idea. I didn’t want her to feel like I was mining her for information. I wanted her to feel like… obviously, we were honouring the truth, and that’s where Michael and Simon and Oliver [Cole, co-writer] come into it, where they can get to the truth of the story for what’s on the page. But in terms of my performance, it is an interpretation. I take their information and my own research, and hope to find the truth and bring our interpretation. I didn’t want her to feel like I was picking her for mannerisms or something, and really that meant I got to meet her a few days before the premiere, and we got to sit down just as two grownups and acknowledge what a journey this is. It can be quite triggering for people that have gone through an experience like this. She’s gone through a traumatic journey with this, granted a long time ago, but for it to then be exposed to the world, that’s a lot.
“But we got to really just sit down as two women, and I got to express my appreciation and respect, and just, adoration for her as a woman who had to go through a lot, and has had a really impressive journey. Both with her story with Rob, and what they dealt with, but also just as a young woman in the industry, continually being reduced to her looks, or who she was dating at the time. And I got to really acknowledge that I see that, and I hope that I brought an aspect of that to our Nicole.
“We also showed up wearing the same thing, which was super weird, it was really creepy [laughs]!”
Your role as Olivia Fraser Richards in Home and Away … how do you think that role prepped you for this role as Nicole”
“I love Olivia. She was 16, I was 22 when I got her, but I think it was really at that time when I started developing my voice as a grown up, and Olivia was so headstrong and kind of just bulldozed her way into life, and it taught me to have a little bit of that myself.
“And Home and Away, being the institution that it is, really gave me the security to express myself and stand up for myself when sometimes you drop into jobs really quickly, you don’t have that opportunity. So, I take my Olivia lessons, and my Home and Away journey with me to every production that I’ve done since. It’s why I think shows like that are so important. They teach creatives both on and off the camera how to be, and how to exist, and how to stand up for themselves, and have a voice in that environment, because it can be quite overwhelming.
“The boring answer is that Home and Away teaches you to prepare, prepare, prepare, because in that environment you don’t have the luxury of 40 something takes like you might get with a Michael Gracey production, and so it meant that I never walked onto a set not having prepared, because it’s in me now. I did it for three years straight, that’s my backbone now.”
Better Man is in cinemas now
