It Wasn't A Blockbuster, But Margot Robbie Says This Was Her Best Role
After delivering a breakout performance opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, Margot Robbie hasn’t slowed down one bit. In the years that followed, the Australian actress took on a diverse slate of projects, from portraying Queen Elizabeth I in Mary Queen of Scots to being DC’s Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey and The Suicide Squad to playing the late actress Sharon Tate in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
And while these films turned out to be big commercial successes, these aren’t the movies that Robbie is most proud of so far.
Margot Robbie Thinks I, Tonya Was Her Best Work
When I, Tonya came along, Robbie was relatively new in Hollywood. Sure, by then, she’d already done The Wolf of Wall Street and even made a cameo in Adam McKay’s Oscar-winning film, The Big Short.
Fans also couldn’t get enough of her as Harley Quinn in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. But despite all these, Robbie was feeling unsure about how far she could really take her career. I, Tonya helped cast those doubts aside.
“I, Tonya was the first time I watched a movie and went 'Okay, I'm a good actor,’” Robbie revealed while speaking with The Hollywood Reporter while attending BAFTA: A Life in Pictures. The actress also added that working on the film encouraged her to reach out to Quentin Tarantino.
This later resulted in Robbie getting cast in Once Upon a Time with Hollywood with DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.
There Were ‘Concerns’ About The Actress Playing Disgraced Ice Skater Tonya Harding
By the time pre-production on I, Tonya began, Robbie had already made it clear to Hollywood that she could act. However, I, Tonya producer Bryan Unkeless wasn’t sure if the actress could convincingly play Harding onscreen.
“There were concerns,” he admitted. “Robbie is Australian — can she do the accent? Can she make the physical transformation?”
That said, Unkless never doubted Robbie’s determination to nail the character onscreen. “There was this intensity behind Margot’s eyes,” he recalled. “And when I’d interviewed Tonya, she’d had that same intensity when she’d talk about landing the triple axel.”
Once Robbie signed on, she spent much of her time on the ice with choreographer Sarah Kawahara.
“I felt like I lived at the ice skating rink,” the actress once said of preparing for the movie. “Every time my alarm would go off at like 5 a.m. I’d be like, ‘I can’t do it again today, I’m still so bruised from yesterday.”
The truth, however, was that Robbie became more than bruised in the process. Hours of intense preparation led to a herniated disk on the actress’ neck. Robbie only realized what was happening a week into shooting when her arms started to become numb.
By the time the film went into principal photography, however, the actress was ready. That said, Robbie still knew there was no way she could pull off Harding’s infamous triple axel and neither could the doubles they considered for the actress. In the end, the film turned to visual effects for the triple axel scene.
Meanwhile, Robbie also studied as much footage of Harding as possible. “I watched for about six months every single thing, every bit of skating, every bit of interview, every documentary, I played it my iPod at night … I had her face, like, painted on the inside of my eyelids and her voice just constantly in my head,” she recalled.
At the same time, Robbie worked on a specific posture for portraying Harding onscreen.
“I wanted it to feel like the world was bearing down on her … I wanted her shoulders rounded, her head to be stooped,” the actress explained.
“I wanted her to always be on the defense – and whenever she was sitting to be sitting forward, waiting for validation, like she was waiting for a skating score.”
I, Tonya Was Also Among The First Films Robbie Produced Herself
Steven Rogers chanced upon Harding’s story when his niece forced him to watch an ESPN documentary on the ice skater and ice skating medalist Nancy Kerrigan one night. And just like that, Rogers, who is best known for rom-coms such as Kate & Leopold and P.S. I Love You, was drawn to Harding who essentially lost her career after her then-husband-Jeff Gillooly, orchestrated an attack against Kerrigan off the ice.
“The thing that bothered me is that [Harding was treated] like a punchline by the media,” Rogers said. “It was the first time [the media] cared less about being accurate than about filling the space, which is now an epidemic.”
He went on to track Harding and even spoke with Gillooly as well. And when the script was done, Rogers sent it to various producers, including indie production companies. That’s how I, Tonya landed on Robbie’s radar.
By then, the actress had formed her very own production house, LuckyChap Entertainment, with then-boyfriend Tom Ackerley (they have since gotten married). And when the couple saw the script, it piqued their curiosity.
“We read it and went down a Wikipedia hole,” Ackerley recalled. “It was just such a crazy story with such amazing characters.”
In producing the film, Robbie also knew they were making a gamble. “Something like I, Tonya. A lot of people probably read that script and went, ‘That can’t be made,’” the actress explained years later. “We were young and dumb enough to go, ‘Let’s make that.’”
And when the film became a critical hit and even earned Robbie her first Oscar nod, it helped the actress get a lot of other projects greenlit. Since then, her company had gone on to produce Birds of Prey, as well as the Emmy-nominated Netflix series Maid, and the Hulu comedy series Dollface.
Robbie also serves as a producer in Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated live-action Barbie movie. The actress plays the iconic Mattel character.
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