“I was obsessed”: The controversial movie director Margot Robbie calls an “incredibly transgressive filmmaker”
Australian actor Margot Robbie still feels like a pretty recent Hollywood phenomenon, but the actor has now spent a decade occupying the very pinnacle of the industry. After finding prominence alongside director Martin Scorsese thanks to the 2013 film Wolf of Wall Street, Robbie is now a three-time Oscar nominee, most recently dazzling in fantastic plastic as Barbie in Greta Gerwig’s box office spectacular.
Undoubtedly one of the industry’s most glamorous and potent performers, Robbie has become the auteur’s actor of choice. Working not only with Scorsese but with Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, David O. Russell and Damien Chazelle, too, Robbie has impressed time and time again, with perhaps her greatest role coming in the underrated critical and commercial bomb Babylon from 2022.
Captivating a generation of cinephiles, Robbie has proven herself not only as an acting force but a connoisseur of great taste, too, often sharing lists of her favourite movies with fans. Such was the case when the Australian actor sat down with A-Frame to declare for such films as Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude and Tarantino’s Kill Bill, among others.
But, no doubt, the most interesting filmmaker Margot Robbie picks out is the subversive American director John Waters, choosing his 1990 movie Cry-Baby, starring Johnny Depp. “It’s left of centre, breaking the mould, totally camp, and you’re like, ‘What? You’ve got Ricki Lake and Johnny Depp? What is this?!’” Robbie expressed regarding the stylised 1950s-inspired musical.
Set in ‘50s Baltimore, Waters’ Cry-Baby is one of his most palatable movies, telling the story of a ‘bad boy’ who wins around a girl that he loves, only for her boyfriend to seek revenge. Nicknamed the ‘Duke of Dirt’, Waters’ filmography is known for upending notions of good taste, yet Cry-Baby plays things with a little more simplicity. As Robbie explains: “I was obsessed with that movie as a kid, and it’s always stuck with me. John Waters is an incredibly transgressive filmmaker.”
Becoming something of a superfan of the musical, Robbie managed to get a crew jacket from the film from her old dialect coach, with the actor claiming, “That is my favourite jacket, and I still wear it all the time.”
With Robbie having worked with some of contemporary cinema’s greatest names, it wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise if Waters chose to collaborate with the Australian on his forthcoming project. Titled Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance, the film is already due to star Aubrey Plaza, but a star name in the form of Margot Robbie might be exactly what the actor needs following her commercial hit, Barbie.
Take a look at Robbie’s favourite John Waters movie, Cry-Baby, below.
