Ice work as margot backs girl power
MARGOT Robbie might be receiving Bafta and Oscar nominations for playing ice dancer Tonya Harding, but the actress says she feels most “empowered” by being behind the camera.
As the stars prepare to wear black in support of the Time’s Up campaign at tomorrow night’s EE BAFTA ceremony at London’s Royal Albert Hall, Margot wants to encourage more women to work behind the scenes in Hollywood.
The Aussie actress – who first hit our screens in Neighbours – was a producer on her latest film I, Tonya, which earned her those Best Actress nominations.
Margot, 27, said: “Being a producer on this film and having a production company, I feel like I’m shaping my career in a way that I want it to be shaped and not just waiting and hoping.”
She added that the aim of her production company, Luckychap, formed with husband
Tom Ackerley and friend Josey Mcnamara, is to provide a voice for women, both as actresses and as producers and directors.
“The production company’s purpose isn’t to have starring vehicles for me, but for any actress,” Margot says. “We want female-driven content and female storytellers telling their stories. I feel empowered by getting to be more in control of my fate.”
I, Tonya – which revisits the true-life attack on Harding’s rival skater, Nancy Kerrigan, orchestrated by Tonya’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly in 1994 – brings up issues that have become key talking points in society recently, such as “truth and abuse”, says Margot.
Speaking yesterday, she adds: “We didn’t realise at the time how relevant and topical, sadly, it would become when the movie came out.
“When Steven Rogers wrote the film,
Trump wasn’t president and when we filmed it, the #Metoo and Time’s Up movements hadn’t began, so it’s things that we recognise as issues in society that we needed to discuss. We just didn’t realise we’d be discussing them so loudly when the film came out.”