Margot Robbie says she made Bombshell so she could learn about sexual harassment
"I didn’t know the definition of sexual harassment, and that’s shocking."
Aux News Margot Robbie
Director Jay Roach’s 2019 film Bombshell was (mostly) based on true accounts of sexual harassment that women experienced at Fox News, with Charlize Theron playing Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman playing Gretchen Carlson, and Margot Robbie playing… a made-up person who doesn’t really exist. But, as it turns out, Robbie didn’t join the project so she could dramatize the real experiences of a real person anyway. Speaking at a BAFTA event this week celebrating her career (via Variety), Robbie revealed that she took the gig because she wanted to learn about sexual harassment—something she didn’t know anything about beforehand, apparently.
“I realized that I—as a person with an established position in the industry, financially set up and self-sufficient—I didn’t know the definition of sexual harassment, and that’s shocking,” she explained, adding that she was “horrified” by how little she knew about the subject and how predators in the workplace can get away with harassment because of the way it “flourishes in the grey area.”
Also at the event, Robbie said that I, Tonya was the first movie she was in where she felt like she had actually become a good actor (we’ll save you some Googling and just note that it came out after she made her debut as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad), and after that she felt inspired to start actively reaching out to directors she wanted to work with. One of those directors was a chatty young man named Quentin Tarantino, who later cast Robbie as Sharon Tate in Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood.
And speaking of I, Tonya, Variety reminds us that Robbie admitted a few years ago that she didn’t realize Tonya Harding was a real person at first, so she learns a lot while making movies, apparently. (Robbie was born in 1990 and isn’t from America, so she gets a pass on not knowing who Tonya Harding was before the movie.)
42 Comments
So in the kovie Bombshell she plays a character who doesn’t exist yet everyone else does. Strange
It worked in Fight Club . . . to a point.
That’s great. She’s a younger actress, and she’s never been sexually harassed. That should be the goal. For someone that looks like her, working in her industry, to feel safe, supported, respected, and equal is the goal. Maybe she could have been more aware of history, but can’t we all.
She didn’t say that. She said she didn’t know the definition of sexual harassment. Which means some of her experiences might have been re-framed by learning more about it.
…we’ll save you some Googling and just note that it came out after she made her debut as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad…Maybe you should have Googled. Her debut was years before that, and her breakout role was in The Wolf of Wall Street, three years before Suicide Squad. Unless you meant to say “after her first appearance as Harley Quinn.”…a made-up person who doesn’t really exist…Isn’t that redundant?
Many articles deserve some criticism, but I think they meant debut as Quinn, not debut as an actress.
No this article still deserves criticism.
Every article by Sam Barsanti deserves criticism by virtue of being a Sam Barsanti article.
Well, a certain former US president is clearly a made-up person but also does exist, regrettably …
Taft?
“Maybe you should have Googled. Her debut was years before that, and her breakout role was in The Wolf of Wall Street, three years before Suicide Squad.”
*sigh*Her debut AS HARLEY QUINN. That means her first time playing Harley Quinn, not her first movie.
Jesus…learn some reading comprehension, k?
I think the redundancy there may have been deliberately playful.
There’s that trademarked, misplaced, white male privileged Barsanti snark.
white male privileged
Loser blogger has a privilege now? Wokester: Civil War
As someone who remembers Tonya Harding from 1994, it’s completely understandable that Robbie thought she wasn’t a real person
There seem to be way easier ways to learn about something than acting in a movie about it. Like reading. That’s generally a decent way.
See the comment two above about “dumb blondes”.
Want to hear about how I learned about the porn industry?
By the time I finished reading this article, I was utterly exhausted by both the horrible, horrible writing and the completely unnecessary snark. …she didn’t realize Tonya Harding was a real person at first, so she learns a lot while making movies, apparently. (Robbie was born in 1990 and isn’t from America, so she gets a pass on not knowing who Tonya Harding was before the movie.)A pass from whom, though? Certainly not you, Sam. Because you just busted her balls for it in the sentence that immediately fucking precedes the parenthetical. Anyway, I think both this article and the Variety piece it stems from do Robbie a disservice in characterizing her remarks as “LOL dumb blonde doesn’t know a word har har.” It seems clear to me from the context around that quote that she was saying something like the film was a way for her to explore a complex issue that she admits she had little exposure to even though it runs throughout her industry. She took the role in part to better understand something, not because she didn’t know what the term “sexual harassment” meant literally.
There’s no way it’s not deliberate. Trashy snark means comments complaining about trashy snark, and that’s “engagement”. Same reason there’s so many articles about “someone said something about Marvel”.
I was utterly exhausted by both the horrible, horrible writing and the completely unnecessary snarkYou’re not from here, are you? /s
Hahaha. Sadly, I’ve been around here for too long. I remember when the output was of a far higher quality. Watching it go downhill, slowly then all at once, has been discouraging.
Meh.Shes in a movie about harassment. And she’s going to be asked about it a lot. Her not knowing about the topic makes me not super interested in what she has to say about it, and how she portrays it.
I’ll take your word for it that this is just the worst most horrible writing but, if 4 paragraphs exhausts you, you’re really working too hard at this reading pop culture posts thing.
the horrible, horrible writing and the completely unnecessary snark- Sam Barsanti.
I was born in 1991 and recently realized Margot Robbie is basically the same age as me. Stfu about people our age not knowing about things. We just turned 30….. some shit is actually new to us.
I’m 31 and I’m realizing that’s a young age. Margot Robbie is also stunningly young considering how deep she’s struck her level of fame.
It wasn’t until I was almost 30 that I realized that an “uncomfortable interaction” I had at age 22 was actually, you know, an assault. I didn’t have the experience to put language to what had happened to me. Likewise, in my 20s I had an idea of sexual harassment as a concept, but it wasn’t until I worked my first corporate job in at age 26-27 that I really understood the shitty ways that women get treated in the workplace and all the different possible shades of sexual harassment.
She’s a beautiful girl. I’m sure she knew sexual harrassment intimately by the tine she was 18.
I bet she was giving all the roos a mighty boner matey!
“Stfu”? Of course, you know things.
Still waiting for an update on her “Tank Girl” movie! (LuckyChap got the film rights a few years ago)
“(we’ll save you some Googling and just note that it came out after she made her debut as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad)“
Oh really? Gee, thanks. I’d have assumed she thinks that Harley god damn fucking Quinn was the first time she gave a great performance.
Jesus, what a fucking cunt you are.
What a horrendous piece of snarky, belittling writing this is. Fair play to Robbie for admitting she doesn’t feel fully versed around a heavy topic, this article on the other hand does no one any good.
They got her in a bubble bath because she wanted to know more about mortgage bonds.
Sam, be better than this… can you be better than this? You don’t have to inject godawful snark and belittlement into everything you write.
I’m sure there are a lot of things the author doesn’t know about that happened before they were born.
It’s funny that she says ‘I, Tonya’ was the first film where she thought she’d become a good actor, because it was the first film I’d seen her in. (Nothing against her, she just hadn’t been in any films I wanted to see before then.) And I was super impressed by her performance. Unfortunately, she still doesn’t seem to be turning up in many films I want to see.
With Robbie’s consent, of course, I’ll gladly drill her on sexual harassment.
I wouldnt mind teaching Robbie all about sexual harassment….for research
because of the way it “flourishes in the grey area.”
…like mold.