USA TODAY International Edition
Margot Robbie is positively regal as Elizabeth I
She finds power with her girl gangs and the moon
“Mary Queen of Scots” offers another strong woman to play. Her girl gangs empower her off screen, too.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Margot Robbie is being royally honest. ❚ The star of “Mary Queen of Scots” (in theaters Friday in New York and Los Angeles, expands to additional cities Dec. 21) 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 on screen.”
The dueling queen drama was thus coronated. “Mary Queen of Scots” examines the fraught relationship between the dueling Scottish royal and her English cousin during their 16thcentury reigns. The younger Mary, who herself had reasonable claim to the English throne, married and produced a male heir, posing a twopronged threat to Elizabeth’s reign. She also was a Catholic slandered by claims of sexual promiscuity and forced to flee Scotland.
The Protestant virgin Queen Elizabeth refused to wed. She ultimately gave Mary safe haven in England, only to later order her beheading.
“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. “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.”
Amusingly, Robbie and Ronan spent more time getting to know each other during last year’s awards run than they did on the “Queen of Scots”
set, where the royals shared just one scene.
“That’s true!” Ronan says by email. “Laura Dern actually hosted a dinner for all of the Oscar nominees last year that Margot and I were both at, and we had such a lovely time.”
Girl gangs will take center stage when Robbie plays Harley Quinn in “Birds of Prey,” the “Suicide Squad” spinoff that starts shooting in January. Robbie is executive-producing and Harley will be joined by Huntress, Black Canary and Renee Montoya.
Robbie witnessed real empowerment while on vacation in Morocco. She was with one of her girl gangs, and a friend suggested they try a moon circle. “I’m not really a wearyour-emotions-on-your-sleeve kind of girl,” Robbie says.
“You make this circle and you pick cards, and it’s all about female power and finding power in unity and your sisterhood,” she says. “And we were sobbing ... holding hands and just saying how much we love each other.”
“I tried to explain it to my husband , and he was thoroughly perplexed,” she laughs. “And then he said, ‘Can the boys do the moon circle too?’ ”