Margot Robbie explains why she wants to “redo” her “not very good” star-making performance in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street.
Scorsese tapped the then-unknown Robbie for the role of Naomi in his movie about Wall Street fraudster Jordan Belfort, tossing her into the deep end of the pool alongside Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort.
Robbie and DiCaprio’s wildly entertaining peek behind the curtain of Wall Street was mostly praised by critics, settling in at 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 83% audience score. The movie was also a box office hit, grossing $407 million on a budget of around $100 million.
Robbie herself received an immediate career boost, later going on to star in big franchise films like Suicide Squad, along with Oscar-bait like I, Tonya, which did indeed snag her a Best Actress nomination. Her newest movie, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, releases on September 19.
Despite receiving wide acclaim for her star-making Wolf of Wall Street performance, Robbie isn’t satisfied with the work she did in the film, telling ScreenRant’s Ash Crossan in an interview for A Big Bold Beautiful Journey that she would “redo” the role of Naomi if she could:
Oh wow. I would love to redo my role in Wolf of Wall Street just because I was so young and I don’t think I was very good at acting back then. I think I could do a lot better now. I’d love to go back and do it better.
What This Means For Robbie And Wolf Of Wall Street
Playing the combative Naomi launched Robbie’s career on a new trajectory, but she initially thought she had lost the role due to a now-famous incident that happened during her audition, when she went off-script and slapped DiCaprio in the face, at first thinking she was in trouble (via Harper’s Bazaar):
But another part of my brain clicks and I just go, Whack! I hit him in the face. And then I scream, ‘F**k you!’ And that’s not in the script at all. The room just went ᴅᴇᴀᴅ silent and I froze.
Far from being upset with the young actor, Scorsese and DiCaprio were delighted by Robbie’s violent improvisation, and immediately decided to cast her as Naomi.
That was not the only time Robbie would go all the way for Wolf of Wall Street. When a scene involving full-frontal nudity came up on the shooting schedule, Scorsese told her she could wear a robe if she felt uncomfortable, but Robbie refused, doing the nudity because she felt it was right for her character (via Talking Pictures):
The whole point is that she’s going to come out completely naked—that’s the card she’s playing right now.
Robbie has also detailed shooting the Wolf of Wall Street scene where she and DiCaprio have Sєx on a pile of money, revealing that it left her covered in paper cuts.
It’s evident from these stories that Robbie was willing to do just about anything for the sake of her Wolf of Wall Street role, even risking nasty paper cuts, and that dedication is part of why she was able to make such an indelible impression as Naomi. Nevertheless, the actor has misgivings about her performance, as she has now revealed.
Our Take On Robbie Wanting A Redo On Wolf Of Wall Street
It’s entirely natural that Robbie would look back on her performance in a movie made over ten years ago and, with the benefit of experience, find things to quibble with.
It would indeed be interesting to know what specifically Robbie would do differently if she had another crack at playing Naomi. Maybe she would ask for the fake money to be a little less sharp. Perhaps she would accept Scorsese’s offer of a robe during her ɴuᴅᴇ scene. Or maybe she would just subtly tweak certain moments.
Robbie is now a powerful producer in her own right, and perhaps she looks back on her days as a young actor with no influence, and is made uncomfortable by some of the things she did because, at the time, she may have thought she had no choice.
The choices Robbie did make in The Wolf of Wall Street were mostly the right ones, at least it seemed at the time, and she can’t have too many regrets about the way things turned out for her after the film launched her to stardom.
