Jake Simmance couldn’t believe it when he got the call revealing he would be playing none other than Gary Barlow in Robbie Williams’ biopic.
The moment was made even more ‘surreal’ as he had to continue his day job, teaching little children while keeping his Better Man role a ‘secret’.
‘I love this story because it’s just bonkers,’ Jake, 26, excitedly tells Metro. ‘It really is such a great reflection of what it’s like to be an actor.
‘I was working in this nursery, and I’d done the final round recall two days before and I knew I was going to be finding out soon. Then my phone started ringing in my pocket.’
He shares: ‘I just screamed and screamed and was swearing, actually quite a lot, which was completely irresponsible. Then I just had to go back downstairs to work and act like nothing had happened.’
In eight days, Jake would be going to Melbourne, Australia, to begin filming as one of Take That but first, he had to get through his last week of teaching.
The Better Man star continues: ‘I remember this little girl had set up a row of chairs to look like an aeroplane, and they had a pilot’s cap. She put the pilot’s cap on my head and asked: “Mr. Jake, where are we going?”
‘I was like, “We’re going to Australia”. It was just this really surreal moment where it was my little secret that no one knew, potentially, my life was about to change.’
Jake has always wanted to become an actor, however, that start was stalled when the country went into lockdown days before his final showcase for drama school.
He’s appeared in episodes of Anatomy of a Scandal, Doctors, Father Brown, and Call The Midwife but Better Man is his first major film — and what a way to start.
After landing the role, the star confesses he couldn’t shake a ‘self-deprecative’ mindset, thinking he only got ‘lucky’ because he ‘looks like Gary’.
‘My friend said, “Even if you do look like the bloke, loads of people can look like the bloke, but only you could become him”,’ he recalls.
‘I really hope people see what I’ve done as an actor and appreciate that an awful lot of homework went into this and I’ve tried to do it as accurately as I can.’
That secret is finally out and the actor isn’t worried about pupils, parents or anyone he knows in real life seeing Better Man — instead, he’s ‘terrified’ of Gary Barlow’s fans.
As the film highlights, Take That has a huge fanbase ‘who want you to do their favourite member justice’, which Jake and his new bandmates were incredibly conscious of.
He shares: ‘We all just desperately hope we’ve done those guys justice. I hope that all of Gary’s superfans think I’ve done a good job.’
Gary and Robbie’s turbulent relationship is well-documented and ‘there were earlier drafts where he was a bit more villainous.’
The Anatomy of a Scandal actor shares: ‘Ultimately, Rob is the anti-hero. He’s the villain of his own story.
‘Gary doesn’t necessarily come across that well all of the time, he can come across as a touch controlling or a touch arrogant. It pales in comparison to the way that Rob comes across.’
Robbie confessed on Graham Norton that he sent the initial script to Gary, who thought he sounded ‘worse than Darth Vader’ so amendments were made.
With Gary’s approval, Jake felt at ease with his portrayal of the superstar but hasn’t spoken to the Patience hitmaker at all.
‘I know Jonno (Davies) has found it very helpful knowing Rob, but at the same time, you’re an actor and it is dramatised,’ he says.
He has a new appreciation for the level of fame Take That reached before their split, having not been alive in the 90s when Robbie left the group.
‘They were 19 years old at the time and had the entire world in the palm of their hands and they were trying to keep it together,’ Jake explains.
‘They were children, and Rob was the youngest. They were dealing with this kid who didn’t know how to handle fame, and they were all just trying their best to keep it together.’
While Better Man’s impact on his professional life ‘remains to be seen’, Jake’s personal life has ‘completely changed’ in the three years since that fateful call.
‘I’ve met — I hope — my life partner, and that is so much more than a movie’, the actor gushes. ‘I’ve made best friends for life, us boys talk every single day and have done for three years.’
The cast bonded instantly, with Jake recalling a time he and Jonno made fools of themselves practising using pogo sticks in the middle of Clapham Common.
He reveals: ‘We’d stand there in the middle of the common practising how to pogo stick in a straight line. We just laugh because people would be looking at us like; “Lads, 1981 wants its hobby back.”‘
Jake promises to post the ‘great videos’ of the duo ‘giggling like children’ on pogo sticks enjoying their little secret.
The experience was overwhelmingly positive for all the young actors, with Jake often rewatching moments from rehearsals and listening to Rock DJ endlessly.
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He proudly says: ‘I will sit there grinning from ear to ear, giggling to myself like a mad man watching this little secret video that I’ve had for two years, I’ve just never grown bored of it. There are so many little moments in the background of Rock DJ, like, Robbie kicking a football that hits someone in the face.
‘He falls over and pulls down an elderly man’s trousers, small things like that. Just little nuggets and no, I’m not bored of it. I’m incredibly passionate about it.’
Jake adds: ‘So what if it goes downhill from here? I’ve got memories for the rest of my life. Let me caveat that by saying it’s not gonna go downhill — it’s only gonna go up.’
Better Man hits UK cinemas on December 26. In the US, it has a limited release on December 25 before releasing widely on January 17, 2025.
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