Mary Queen Of Scots star Margot Robbie gets royally honest
Margot Robbie, the star of Mary Queen Of Scots wasn’t simply in the market for a juicy part when she signed on to play Queen Elizabeth I opposite Saoirse Ronan, who takes on the romantic (and doomed) Scottish monarch. She was trying to add to her girl gang. “I love all the dudes I’ve worked with, they’re amazing. [But] in real life I hang out with my girlfriends all the time,” says Robbie, 28.
“I have a girl gang in New York, a girl gang in London, a girl gang in Australia. That’s who I hang out with. I have a lot of guy friends, too, but there’s nothing quite like the girl gang. And I was like, I never get to act with girls onscreen.”
The duelling queen drama was thus coroneted. Mary Queen Of Scots examines the fraught relationship between the duelling Scottish royal and her English cousin during their 16th-century reigns.
The younger Mary, who herself had reasonable claim to the English throne, married and produced a male heir, posing a two-pronged threat to Elizabeth’s reign.
She was also a Catholic slandered by claims of sexual promiscuity and forced to flee Scotland.
It was the Protestant virgin Queen Elizabeth, who refused to wed and be usurped by a power-hungry husband, who ultimately gave Mary safe haven in England, only to later order her beheading, convinced her cousin was plotting against her.
“The gender politics of the time put enormous pressure on women, especially women in positions of power [such as] Mary and Elizabeth, to have a male heir, because being male trumped everything,” says Robbie, who plays the wigged queen as she’s stripped of her beauty by a serious bout of smallpox. “It didn’t matter if you were born rightfully to be a queen. People wanted stability, and in their minds, that had to be a male on the throne.”
Robbie and Ronan spent more time getting to know each other during last year’s awards run (Robbie was nominated for I, Tonya, while Ronan was up for Lady Bird) than they did on the Queen Of Scots set, where the long-distance royals shared just one scene.
Girl gangs will continue to take centre stage when Robbie returns to playing Harley Quinn in Birds Of Prey, the upcoming Suicide Squad spin-off that starts shooting in January. Robbie is executive producing, and under her watch, Harley will be joined by Huntress, Black Canary and Renee Montoya.