The role Margot Robbie won by calling her co-star a dick: “Acting 101, I guess”
Rising from Australian soap operas to acclaimed Hollywood movies in a matter of years, Margot Robbie has become one of cinema’s most popular stars, appearing in a diverse range of movies that have secured her success. She received her big break when she starred in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street in 2013, and since then, she has played everyone from Harley Quinn to Barbie, even forming her own production company to spotlight female-led projects.
Robbie’s tenure in Hollywood so far has been deeply impressive, and it seems as though she’ll go to extreme lengths to achieve her goals. While talent and connections tend to help, so does a fearless sense of determination and a lack of resistance to potentially detrimental obstacles, and when it came to auditioning in the early years of her film career, Robbie didn’t let anything stop her from proving herself.
Two years after Robbie appeared in Scorsese’s tale of capitalist gluttony alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, she starred in the film Focus with Will Smith, which received mixed reviews from critics. Still, the film helped to put Robbie further on the cinematic map, and it managed to gross over $150million, making it a commercial hit.
The audition for the part came while Robbie was far from prepared, however, and she was left scrambling to get to New York on time. She revealed, as reported by Entertainment Weekly, “I was backpacking for a week with my brother on an island off Croatia. I end up having the craziest 24 hours of my life. I’m soaking wet because I’d been swimming. I get back to the hostel at 6am, no sleep, turn my phone on, and I’ve got all these messages: ‘They want you to audition for Focus. Your flight leaves tonight.’”
Adding, “There’s only one catamaran to the mainland and it leaves in 20 minutes, so I’m grabbing my stuff and I race off and I get the catamaran, I get a bus to the airport, I get to the airport and wait six hours, I fly to France and wait another six hours, I fly to New York, and by the time I get to New York they’ve lost my luggage.”
With wet clothing, no makeup, and running on just a few hours of sleep, Robbie miraculously made it to the audition on time, only to find out that Smith wasn’t even there: “He comes in and says, ‘Sorry I’m late, I was coming from Queens.’ And I look at Will, and I was like, ‘Yeah? Well, I just came from an island off Croatia and I’m here on time.’”
Somehow, her behaviour at the audition was just what the casting directors wanted to see, and she successfully landed the role: “When they hired me for Focus, they said they liked my audition. I was like, ‘So I got the job because I looked like shit and called Will Smith a dick?’ It worked out well. Acting 101, I guess.”
It seems as though the actor’s sheer dedication to the part spurred her to give her all to the audition, even if she had just endured the most stressful journey of her life. Focus might not be one of Robbie’s most incredible films, but it helped to cement her as a profitable star.
