Margot Robbie appeared on “Talking Pictures” with TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz and revealed that “Wolf of Wall Street” director Martin Scorsese actually offered her the chance to not appear completely nude in the film. Robbie has a full frontal scene as Naomi LaPaglia, the honest and stunning wife of Leonardo DiCaprio’s criminal Jordan Belfort. The actress was in her early twenties at the time and wasn’t even thinking about “how everyone would see this.”
“He (Scorsese) said, ‘Maybe you could wear a robe if you’re not comfortable.’ “But that’s not what you’re going to do in this scene,” Robbie said of her character and herself chose to go full frontal. “The whole point is that she’s going to come out completely naked, and that’s the card she’s playing now.”
Robbie took matters into her own hands during much of the making of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which served as her breakout film role. For example, her audition scenes with DiCaprio ended with their characters kissing, but she decided to slap him instead.
“I thought: ‘I could kiss Leonardo DiCaprio right now, and that would be amazing. I can’t wait to tell all my friends about this.’ Then I thought nah. ‘I punched him in the face,'” Robbie said. “It was complete silence for what seemed like an eternity but was probably three seconds “
“They burst out laughing. Leo and Marty were laughing so hard. They said, ‘That was great,'” Robbie recalls. I was thinking: “I’m going to get arrested, I’m sure this is assault or battery.” Not only will you never work again, you’ll go to prison for this, you idiot. Also why did you have to hit him so hard? “You should have done it lighter.”
“The Wolf of Wall Street” was Robbie’s first major film role and opened in 2013, the same year she had a smaller supporting role in the romantic drama “About Time.” She reunited with superstar DiCaprio six years later in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Listen to Robbie’s full interview on the “Talking Pictures” podcast here.