While auditioning for the 2013 film directed by Martin Scorsese, Margot Robbie read a scene with Leonardo DiCaprio. The scene originally involved a kiss, but after DiCaprio delivered the line, “Come over here and kiss me,” Robbie slapped him instead.
“In my head I was like, ‘I could totally kiss Leonardo DiCaprio. That would be awesome,’” she recently recalled during an episode of the ‘Talking Pictures’ podcast. “I can’t wait to tell all of my friends this. And then I was like… nah. And just walloped him in the face.”
“And it was dead silence for what felt like an eternity but was probably three seconds,” continued the actress, who was 22 at the time. “And then they just burst out laughing. Leo and Marty were laughing so hard, they said, ‘That was great.’”
Still, Robbie thought, “‘You’re going to get arrested, I’m pretty sure that’s assault, battery. Not only will you never work again, but actually you will go to jail for this, you idiot. And also, why did you have to do it so hard? You could have done it lighter.’”
What Robbie feared didn’t happen. She got the role of Naomi Lapaglia in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ acting alongside DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, and Matthew McConaughey. The movie told the story of a stockbroker named Jordan Belfort who engaged in fraud and stock market manipulation.
The role thrust Robbie into fame, paving the way for her to play Harley Quinn in 2016’s ‘Suicide Squad’ and the following DC projects. She later earned critical acclaim for her performance in 2017’s ‘I, Tonya’ and reunited with DiCaprio in 2019’s ‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.’
Last year, the actress produced and starred in ‘Barbie’ with Ryan Gosling. The Greta Gerwig-directed movie became the biggest opener in 2023 and earned $1.44 billion worldwide.
