Margot Robbie Says Stripping Down in Wolf of Wall Street Was Her Idea
Margot Robbie is setting the record straight about bearing it all during an iconic Wolf of Wall Street scene.
“[Director Martin Scorsese] said, ‘Maybe you can be wearing a robe if you’re not comfortable.’ And I was like, ‘That is not what she would do in that scene. She would not put a robe on,’” Robbie, 34, said of her character Naomi during a November episode of the “Talking Pictures” podcast. “The whole point is that she’s going to come out completely naked. That’s the card she’s playing right now.”
Robbie, who said she was about 21 when she filmed the 2013 movie, admitted that she wasn’t thinking about how people were going to see the movie and later began wondering how she was going to explain to her family that she did a full-frontal nude scene.
“I think my bigger concerns weren’t even, ‘How did I come across as an actor?’ [But moreso] of, like, ‘Oh gosh, everyone is going to see this,’ and I hadn’t really appreciated that until that point,” Robbie said.
Robbie recalled making adjustments to the script during her auditions for Wolf of Wall Street, which earned praise from Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred as Jordan Belfort.
“In my head I was like, ‘I could totally kiss Leonardo DiCaprio right now, that would be awesome. I can’t wait to tell all of my friends this.’ And then I was like, ‘Nah.’ And walloped him in the face,” she said. “It was dead silence for about, what felt like an eternity, but was probably three seconds. Then they just burst out laughing. Leo and Marty were laughing so hard, they were like, ‘That was great. Do it again.’”
In the seconds before Scorsese and DiCaprio reacted, Robbie said she was nervous about how her improv would be perceived.
“I was thinking, ‘I’m going to get arrested; I’m pretty sure that’s assault, battery. Not only will you never work again, actually, you will go to jail for this, you idiot,’” she said. “‘And also why did you have to hit him so hard? You should have done it lighter.’”
Robbie and DiCaprio starred in the 2013 film, which was based on a former stockbroker’s memoir. In the movie, Naomi (played by Robbie) has an affair with Jordan (DiCaprio) and the pair later tie the knot.
“When you’re acting across from Leo, it is so clear that he could do your part, his part, everyone’s part. It’s kind of like, ‘Keep up with me or I’ll just go and I’ll go and go and go,’” she said. “He doesn’t even need to wait for you. It was very apparent to me. I was like, ‘I gotta get in there or I’m not in this at all.’ And then when you’re on the set, everyone’s got that mentality. Everyone’s one upping each other with the craziness.”