With her signature blonde mane and bombshell figure, Margot Robbie is a strong contender for Hollywood’s Golden Girl title. As one of Hollywood’s most intriguing actresses, she’s sure to stake her claim in the cinematic world.
With her signature blonde mane and bombshell figure, Margot Robbie is a strong contender for Hollywood’s Golden Girl title. As one of Hollywood’s most intriguing actresses, she’s sure to stake her claim in the cinematic world.
Images TPG/Click Photos, 123RF.com
Up until now, Margot Robbie’s most memorable line on screen was in a scene in The Wolf of Wall Street, where she sat in front of Leonardo DiCaprio, dressed in a short skirt with legs spread open, and huskily purred, “And you know something else, Daddy? Mommy is just so sick and tired of wearing panties.”
At just 22 years of age then, the Australian actress had already achieved what most actors – aspiring or otherwise – would kill to have had a shot at: star in a Martin Scorsese film, act alongside one of the most respected actors of our time, and grow from being a small screen actress to a bona fide movie star overnight. With heavy hitters Scorsese, DiCaprio, and more recently, Alexander Skarsgård and Cara Delevingne, as part of her Hollywood squad, where will Margot go from here?
Dropping the bomb(shell)
Considering that Margot Robbie’s claim to fame is a full-frontal nude scene and, of course, her natural good looks, it’s easy for her to get typecast as the seductive nymph. But an inspection of her post-Scorsese filmography shows she was careful to stay away from characters that were similar to her breakout role. In Z for Zachariah, she played a post-apocalyptic survivor who’s caught in a love triangle with two other fellow survivors. In Suite Française, she was almost unrecognisable as she traded in her voluminous blonde locks for tight, mousy brown curls to portray Celine Joseph, a French villager whose town was occupied by German forces during World War II. And even though her turn as a con woman in last year’s Focus saw her going back to being the hottie of the film, critics were quick to praise her acting chops and sleight of hand.
This year, she’s hitting the big screen again in not one, not two, but three movies. First is the Tina Fey-produced, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which sadly, wasn’t screened here. This month’s antisuperhero blockbuster, Suicide Squad, is highly-anticipated as well, due to the buzz the actress created around her character Harley Quinn, the accomplice and sometime-lover to one of the most notable comic book villains of all time, the Joker.
But before taking on the role of an unhinged villainness, Margot graces the big screen in The Legend of Tarzan, where she plays Jane to Alexander Skarsgård’s Tarzan – but not as the helpless love interest we’ve come to know in the original story.
“My immediate reaction was that I had no interest in playing a damsel in distress. But my team said, ‘No, read it. It’s a different take.’”, the 25-year-old actress tells us.
“Despite the fact that she’s being held captive, she is very defiant and independent – almost to a fault sometimes. I think that’s one of the qualities I love most about the role,” Margot adds.
Under the direction of David Yates, who most notably worked on the last four Harry Potter films, the live-action adaptation of the classic Tarzan stories stars heavyweight thespians such as Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz.
“Oddly enough, I probably spent more time with Christoph than anyone else because Jane is Rom’s captive for much of the film, and he was the perfect acting partner for those sorts of scenes. Rom is a threat, but Jane is very, very defiant. What’s interesting is that she has a curiosity about him, rather than blatant fear, and I loved playing that with him,” she recounts.
Of course, no Jane would be complete without her Tarzan, and in Margot’s case, that would be one Alexander Skarsgård, whose golden good looks – dare we say – give Margot’s a run for her money. “We immediately had a very easy rapport,” laughs Margot, who describes the strapping Swede as “the most lovable guy in the world.”
“What I felt most interesting about Alexander playing Tarzan was that, to me, he doesn’t feel like an alpha male. He’s so giving as an actor; he wasn’t overbearing or focused on himself,” adds Margot. “So that made for a perfect environment to create this very real relationship between our characters.”
The hustle to Hollywood
So how did a country girl go from a small town on Australia’s Gold Coast to the top of the Hollywood A-list? In a word – hustle. At just 17 years old, Margot got herself an agent and was calling up the staff of Neighbours, the famous star-making Aussie daytime soap opera, repeatedly. Not taking “no” for an answer paid off , and she became a part of the show for the next three years.
Even then, she kept pushing. While she was making a name for herself on Aussie TV, she was simultaneously setting the wheels in motion for her eventual move to Tinseltown: putting her pay cheques into her Hollywood fund, pressing her new agent to get her auditions in Los Angeles and taking dialect lessons so she could speak with a convincing American accent.
Long story short – one cancelled US television series and a small role in a Rachel McAdams’ rom-com later, she found herself in a room auditioning with Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese for Wolf of Wall Street. “So I’m failing miserably. And Leo’s phenomenal. He’s powerful. He can do his part and he can do your part at the same time with his eyes closed. I’m barely getting a word in,” revealed Margot in a 2015 interview with Harper’s Bazaar.
It was when they moved onto the next scene, where their characters are having an argument, that Margot hit the panic button. “In my head I was like, ‘You have literally 30 seconds left in this room and if you don’t do something impressive nothing will ever come of it’.” So when Leonardo recited a line asking her to kiss him, she was determined to make that scene go down in history.
"When else am I ever going to get a chance to kiss Leo DiCaprio, ever? But another part of my brain clicks and I just let go. Whack! I hit him in the face. And then I scream, ‘F*ck you!’ And that’s not in the script at all.”
Margot might have gone off -script when she delivered that slap, but given her gutsy, go-get-‘em attitude, it’s clear that eventual stardom and success was written into her destiny from the start.
Fame game
For her next move, Margot takes on the vivacious Harley Quinn as Suicide Squad hits the theatres in all its glory. And to be honest, we can’t remember the last time moviegoers were this excited about a casting choice for a villain – not even when the late Heath Ledger was revealed as the Joker in The Dark Knight (that adoration only came after people saw his performance).
This automatically tags her as the next Famous Girl to Watch, but admirably enough, there are none of the usual scandalous headlines to speak of – Margot’s not a regular on tabloids and is notoriously private about her personal life.
And therein lies her appeal: in the age of oversharing, she still maintains an air of mystery about her, much like the glamourous movie stars of Old Hollywood, but without the aloofness or the alienating quality of an It Girl. As a result, audiences know her more as Margot the actress, rather than Margot the celebrity. So, to answer our own question: it seems like there’s nowhere to go but up for this small-town girl from Down Under.
The Legend of Tarzan is showing in cinemas now.
There’s something about Margot…
Five pieces of trivia about this talented and sexy AF actress.
1 She has a pet rat, which was given to her by Jared Leto when he went all method for his role as Joker.
2 She’s a tattoo artist. At least, for her Suicide Squad director, David Ayer. She literally left a mark on David when she permanently inked the word “Skwad” (for “squad”, geddit?) on his left arm.
3 She had no idea who Will Smith was prior to working with him on Focus. We wonder how Will felt about that…
4 She did a spoof of American Psycho, titled Australian Psycho, for Vogue. In the three-minute clip, she held cold spoons to her eyes, said a bunch of weird beauty stuff, and Vegemite gets a shout out. It’s hilarious, watch it.
5 One time, Margot partied with Prince Harry, and mistook him for Ed Sheeran. Gurrrrrrrrrl….
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