Margot Robbie

On SharOn TaTe, QuenTin TaranTinO and dance mOveS.

How did this part first come to you? Did Quentin ask you directly?

No. I reached out to him, actually. I wrote him a letter after I saw the first cut of I, Tonya. I thought, “OK. I’m finally ready to reach out to my idol filmmaker.” I wrote him a letter saying that I love his work and that I’d love to watch him work one day, and a few weeks later I received a phone call saying, “Quentin received your letter and he would like to meet you.” So we sat down and he started telling me about the project. After that, I think it was another couple of months before the script was ready to be read.

What happened then?

I did what Brad and Leo had to do: you go over to Quentin’s house, you sit at his kitchen nook and you read the script. There was no question of, “Do I want the part?” I was just beyond thrilled that I was even having a conversation with him, to be honest. So, yeah, I was curious about the script, but I was dying to work with him no matter what. And then everything kind of kicked off from there.

So what was the first thing you did? How did you get ready for it?

We spent a lot of time chatting, just about Sharon as a character and the time period. He could provide so much context and texture to 1969 Los Angeles, because he was there for it. There’s only so much you can get out of a book or the internet or whatever. And then I did the obvious things: I read everything I could, watched everything I could.

For someone who led a very short life, Sharon was incredibly well documented.

Yes, she was. It astounds me how many pictures and how many photoshoots she did – how many magazine shoots she did in the few years that she was working in the industry. It wasn’t that long, yet I just never stopped finding more and more coverage on her. Yeah, she was incredibly well documented.

How about the dancing?

I worked with Toni Basil who did the song ‘Mickey’. Back in the day, she also choreographed for Elvis movies, all the beach party movies. I’d go over to her house, and she’s got this little dance studio in the back. She was like, “OK, now do this move. Now do the Pony. Now do this.” It was exhausting. I actually don’t know how old Toni is but she’s got incredible stamina. I was on the floor dying and she was like, “Come on, keep going!” DW