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30 NT NEWS. Saturday, January 25, 2014. www.ntnews.com.au PUB: NT NEWS DATE: 25-JAN-2014 PAGE: 30 COLOR: C M Y K SATURDAY EXTRA l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l ntnews.com.au Making a splash Hard work has paid off for former Neighbours actress Margot Robbie. By NEALA JOHNSON Clockwise from main, Margot Robbie lights up the red carpet; in an infamously sultry The Wolf of Wall Street scene with Leonardo DiCaprio; Robbie during her Neighbours days Having the Neighbours contract was perfect; it gave me the time to put everything in place, so when I did get to America I could hit the ground running M ARGOT Robbie would like to issue a dis- claimer: ‘‘I’m not that good.’’ At just 23, the Queensland- born-and-bred actor has made a huge Hollywood splash, go- ing scene for sexy scene with Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated tale of stockbroker excess, The Wolf of Wall Street. Robbie not only won the role over higher-profile young actors, she took what could have been a thankless trophy- wife part and turned it into a memorable ballbreaker. Most would have by now seen the image of Robbie with her stiletto heel planted on DiCaprio’s forehead, from a scene where wife works hus- band into a sexual lather then keeps him hanging, just to prove she has some power in the relationship. That’s just the tip of the iceberg; Robbie laughs that it’s a good thing those shocked by the de- bauchery in the film ‘‘didn’t see the original draft’’. The casting director who put the Australian in front of Scorsese, Ellen Lewis, has said that, while it was a ‘‘provocative film’’, Robbie wasn’t intimidated. ‘‘I guess I was just hiding it very well, because I was ter- ribly intimidated,’’ Robbie laughed. ‘‘But with those tricky scenes, I feel like if you don’t commit to it 100 per cent, they end up looking silly. So I thought, ‘It’s all or nothing,’ and I really went for it.’’ It turned out to be a dream start (Wolf is only Robbie’s second international feature, after British rom-com About Time). Yet the success now has Robbie worried that she’s lost the element of surprise. ‘‘The nice thing is, when no one knows you, the bar is set really low ... So you have the ability to exceed ex- pectations,’’ she said. Post-Wolf, ‘‘everyone’s set the bar really high and expects me to be brilliant. I almost want to put the disclaimer out there first: ‘I’m not that good! Don’t set your expectations too high!’ It’s going to be harder now, if anything.’’ One gets the feeling Robbie will be OK — she got herself this far, after all. Though the graduation from Neighbours or Home and Away to Hollywood stardom seems almost de rigueur these days (Melissa George, Chris Hems- worth, Ryan Kwanten, Isla Fi- sher, Jesse Spencer, etc), Rob- bie’s shot at the States was no afterthought. In that way, she has some- thing in common with her next ridiculously famous co- star, Will Smith. (They team up in pickpocket comedy Fo- cus, to be released later in 2014.) After deciding he want- ed to be the biggest movie star in the world, Smith closely studied the careers of those already there. Robbie was similarly sys- tematic: using her time on Neighbours to draw up a ca- reer road map and start putt- ing it into action — for in- stance, taking American accent lessons two years be- fore she stepped foot in US. ‘‘I didn’t grow up knowing anyone in the industry, so I didn’t know how anyone would go about pursuing a ca- reer in acting. It was never a plausible career choice,’’ Robbie said. ‘‘When I started working on Neighbours, I met people who had been doing it for 20 years and supported their family quite comfortably. It sud- denly dawned on me that you could do it as a career. ‘‘But it wasn’t just hitting the jackpot — Angelina Jolie didn’t just win the lotto. There were steps you could take to pursue that, to make it something you could live off. So that’s when the plan started forming. ‘‘Having the Neighbours contract was perfect; it gave me the time to put everything in place, so when I did get to America I could hit the ground running.’’ Now Robbie is a bit of an evangelist for the virtues of hard work: ‘‘I just keep trying to tell people, when they see these things that seem so out of reach, ‘No, trust me, if you put the time and the effort and the work in, it will hap- pen. It has to happen’.’’ Happen, it has, for Robbie. Or perhaps that should be hap- pening, it is. Fresh from wow- ing the red carpet at the Golden Globes and SAG awards in LA, she flew home to show off Wolf to friends and family at the Brisbane pre- miere. A day or two after that, she left for New Zealand, where she’ll this week begin shooting her ‘‘passion pro- ject’’, the post-apocalyptic dra- ma Z for Zachariah, with Ch- iwetel Ejiofor and Chris Pine. ‘‘Right after filming Wolf of Wall Street, still no one knew who I was,’’ Robbie said. ‘‘They went with another ac- tress (Amanda Seyfried) who obviously had more internat- ional value. It made sense.’’ Then Seyfried pulled out. ‘‘Somehow I got the good fortune of having the script back on my lap,’’ Robbie said, ‘‘and I had two days to fight for it as much as I could.’’ She’s also been rumoured as a likely Jane to Alexander Skarsgard’s Tarzan in a big budget reinvention. That one is ‘‘still in the works . . . but a very exciting prospect’’. Much like Robbie herself. The Wolf of Wall Street is now showing
