Margot Robbie has made a name for herself in Hollywood that has her breaking records. According to The Hollywood Reporter, as part of BAFTA: A Life in Pictures, Robbie told the audience about the movie that showed her how good of an actor she was: I, Tonya. The film which featured Robbie's take on controversial figure skater Tonya Harding gained her an Academy Award nomination (and a win for her co-star Allison Janney) but it was also the movie that, for many of us, put Robbie on the map as a creative outside of her roles in The Wolf of Wall Street and her turn as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad.
"I, Tonya was the first time I watched a movie and went 'Okay, I'm a good actor,'" Robbie said to the audience before revealing that it is what prompted her to reach out to Quentin Tarantino which led her to playing the role of Sharon Tate in his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
But the fact that it was I, Tonya that confirmed for Robbie that she was good is both surprising but also makes sense given how just how good she is in the film. It is one of my own personal favorite movies because of Robbie's performance as the controversial figure skater who is linked to the attack on fellow American skater Nancy Kerrigan.
Prior to I, Tonya, fans knew her as Harley Quinn, but she had been in prestige films prior to that. They were not the leading roles that Robbie is currently landing, but they were significant parts that had audiences talking. Robbie went on to play Harding in such a way that it brought to life how the controversy of her situation with Kerrigan led to the destruction of Harding's career. But did so in such a way that you understood a bit more of Harding and her connection with the attack then we ever learned about in the news.
Harding isn't without fault and the movie doesn't pretend like she is (labeling the story as what Harding and her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly played by Sebastian Stan, as well as others say happened) but it is a movie that highlights the quiet storm that Robbie can bring to a character. The scene in which she is crying before the infamous Olympic skate where she claimed her laces were broken, and her skate was loose is one that will not leave your mind after watching the movie.