Margot Robbie Knows What Movie Turned Her Into A Really Good Actor
Margot Robbie thinks I, Tonya is the movie that proved to herself she could really act.
As Australian actor Margot Robbie prepares to do a worldwide press tour for her upcoming film Babylon with Brad Pitt, she seems to be getting frank about her career and what movies mean the most to her. According to a report by The Hollywood Reporter, Robbie believes that the movie I, Tonya proved to her that she was capable of great acting, which then prompted Robbie to reach out to director Quentin Tarantino about costarring in his newest film at the time. The movie ended up being Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and working with the director was a “bucket list thing for me,” Robbie confirms.
Margot Robbie was propelled to stardom when she costarred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill in the 2013 biographical drama The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese. Robbie had worked for years on television in her native Australia prior to getting the gig in Scorsese’s project, most notably on the show Neighbours. Since then, she starred as controversial Olympic ice skater Tonya Harding in 2017’s I, Tonya with Sebastian Stan and Allison Janney, which Robbie says was the role that made her convinced she was a good actor.
Experts in the film industry tend to agree with Margot Robbie’s assessment, as I, Tonya was a point of high praise from critics in her career. Robbie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the role, but ultimately lost to Frances McDormand for her portrayal of Mildred Hayes in Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Robbie gained the courage to speak to Quentin Tarantino after working on I, Tonya, who eventually cast her to play Manson murder victim Sharon Tate in his revisionist blockbuster, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The choices that led Margot Robbie to her starring role in I, Tonya and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ended up launching her acting career to new heights. I, Tonya eventually grossed over $53 million at the box office against a budget of $11 million, while Once Upon a Time in Hollywood grossed $377 million with a reported budget of around $96 million. The success of these two films made Robbie more marketable to a younger audience, particularly for her villainous, and hilarious, turn as Harley Quinn for the DC Universe.
Since her time acting alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Margot Robbie is starring again with Pitt in another Hollywood-themed movie due to debut next month, Babylon. Set against the backdrop of a 1920s cocaine-filled jazz era that marked the end of the silent film days in Hollywood, Babylon is directed by La La Land‘s Damien Chazelle and costars an ensemble group of actors, including Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Li Jun Li, and Tobey Maguire. Babylon is already gaining Oscars buzz for Robbie in the Best Actress category again, and is set to be released with a lengthy runtime of over three hours on December 23, 2022 only in theaters.
