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The three-time Oscar nominee famously stripped down for a full-frontal nude scene opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film, and in a new interview she says the sequence was her idea.
Although she had appeared in the Aussie soap Neighbours and ABC’s short-lived primetime drama Pan Am, the movie was Robbie’s big breakthrough. But in the leadup to its release, she was worried about what her family and friends would think of the much-talked about scene.
“My bigger concerns weren’t even, ‘How did I come across as an actor,’ (but), ‘Oh, gosh, everyone’s going to see this,’ and I hadn’t really appreciated that until that point,” she remembered.
In the movie, Robbie played Naomi Lapaglia, a young woman sleazy stockbroker Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) romances and later marries. In another memorable scene, Naomi sticks her high heel shoe in Belfort’s face to punish him.
“I thought, I could kiss Leonardo DiCaprio right now, and that would be awesome. I can’t wait to tell all of my friends this. And then I thought … nah. And just walloped him in the face,” she said.
“It was dead silence for what felt like an eternity but was probably three seconds,” she added. “Then they just burst out laughing. Leo and Marty were laughing so hard. They said, ‘That was great.’ I was thinking, ‘I’m going to get arrested, I’m pretty sure that’s assault, battery … Not only will you never work again, actually you will go to jail for this, you idiot. And also why did you have to hit him so hard? You should have done it lighter.’”
With an ensemble cast that also included Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey, Jon Bernthal and Kyle Chandler, Robbie recalled how she worried that she was going to end up as “one small part in this big circus.”
During her time on set, she remembered thinking: “If you want to be in this movie, you’ve got to make yourself known on screen.”
Robbie, who reunited with DiCaprio on 2019’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, also recounted a “surreal” moment when the actor’s Titanic co-star Kate Winslet paid a visit to the set.
“There was the big, crazy scene after I ask for a divorce and stuff. And Kate Winslet came to visit set, to visit Leo that day,” Robbie said. “I was in the room next to them, listening to the Titanic soundtrack trying to stay in (a) sad, teary mode. And then I saw Kate Winslet and Leo walk past. It was very surreal.”
Elsewhere in the podcast, Robbie spoke candidly of her starring role in Damien Chazelle’s maligned 2022 film Babylon. Set in 1920s Hollywood as the industry moved away from its silent movie era, Robbie led a star-studded cast that included Brad Pitt, Jean Smart and Diego Calva. But the picture was a critical and box office failure.
“I know I am biased because I am very close to the project and I obviously believe in it, but I still can’t figure out why people hated it. I wonder if in 20 years people are going to be like, ‘Wait, Babylon didn’t do well at the time?’ Like when you hear that Shawshank Redemption was a failure at the time and you’re like, ‘How is that possible?’” she said.
Listen to Robbie’s full interview on the Talking Pictures podcast here.