Yahoo Lifestyle Margot Robbie Says She Thought She'd ‘Go To Jail’ For Slapping Leo DiCaprio During Audition
It turns out Margot Robbie was a key architect of some of the most talked-about scenes in her debut film, Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
In a recent appearance on the “Talking Pictures” podcast, the actor said it was her idea to strike her future co-star Leonardo DiCaprio while she was auditioning for the 2013 Oscar-nominated film.
According to Robbie, she and DiCaprio had started improvising during their audition scene, and she had the idea to end the scene by kissing him. But instead, she opted for a much more shocking finish.
“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 my friends this.’ And then I was like, ‘Nah,’ and just sort of walloped him in the face,” Robbie recalled. “It was dead silent for what felt like an eternity but was probably three seconds.”
According to the “Barbie” star, the unexpected move left Scorsese and DiCaprio in stitches.
“They just burst out laughing. Leo and Marty were laughing so hard. They were like, ‘That was great,’” Robbie said.
“What’s going through your mind in those three seconds?” host Ben Mankiewicz asked.
“I was like: ‘You’re going to get arrested. I’m pretty sure that is assault, battery. Not only will you never work again, but actually, you will go to jail for this, you idiot,’” Robbie recalled. “And also: ‘Why did you have to do it so hard? You could’ve done it lighter.’”
The Australian star also said she was given the option not to perform full frontal nudity in the scene where her character, Naomi Lapaglia, seduces her husband, shady millionaire stockbroker Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio).
Scorsese suggested she could cover up with a robe if she wanted, Robbie said, but she declined because she felt it wouldn’t be true to the character.
“[Scorsese] said, ‘Maybe you can be wearing a robe if you’re not comfortable.’ And I was like, ‘That is not what [Naomi] would do in that scene,’” Robbie explained. “She would not put a robe on. The whole point is that she’s going to come out completely naked. That’s the card she’s playing right now.”
That wasn’t the only scene the three-time Oscar nominee helped shape. During a 2022 installment of BAFTA’s “A Life in Pictures” series, Robbie said that a few key plot beats in the movie weren’t in the original script, and only emerged in a late-night brainstorm session between herself, Scorsese and DiCaprio. (Spoilers ahead!)
“What happened previously in the script was that I walked into [Jordan’s] office and said I want a divorce. And that was it,” Robbie said, according to Deadline.
But the night before shooting the scene, she, DiCaprio and Scorsese joined forces to conceive of the sequence where Jordan crashes a car with the couple’s daughter inside.
“We started riffing, and we locked ourselves in a room until like three in the morning and came up with all of that. And the sex scene that comes before that,” Robbie said.
