Margot Robbie Says It Was Her Idea to Go Nude in Wolf of Wall Street, Over Martin Scorsese’s Original Plan

What Margot Robbie says, goes. 

In a recent episode of the Talking Pictures podcast shared last week, the Barbie actress, 34, remembered the role that shifted her career just over a decade ago. 

Starring as Naomi Lapaglia opposite Leonardo DiCaprio (Jordan Belfort) in director Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, Robbie decided she wanted to take more risks with her character. 

“That’s not what she would do in that scene,” she said of Lapaglia originally being meant to come out in a robe in an attempt to seduce her soon-to-be ex-husband. “The whole point is that she’s going to come out completely naked — that’s the card she’s playing.”

In the movie, based on Belfort’s 2007 memoir of the same name, Robbie plays the wife of the former stockbroker and convicted criminal.

During the podcast, the Academy Award-nominated actress also recalled her final audition before being cast as Lapaglia — admitting she was certain she bombed it after improvising and slapping DiCaprio, 50, instead of having a more intimate moment. 

“I thought, I could kiss Leonardo DiCaprio right now, and that would be awesome. I can’t wait to tell all of my friends this,” Robbie said. “And then I thought, ‘Nah.’ And just walloped him in the face.”

She said the reaction was a “dead silence for what felt like an eternity,” admitting in reality, it “was probably three seconds.”

“Then they just burst out laughing. Leo and Marty were laughing so hard, they said, ‘That was great.’ I was thinking, I’m going to get arrested, I’m pretty sure that’s assault, battery,” Robbie said. 

The Suicide Squad actress recalled thinking about all of the different ways she could get in trouble for taking the audition into her own hands.

“‘Not only will you never work again, actually you will go to jail for this, you idiot. And also why did you have to hit him so hard? You should have done it lighter,’” she remembered thinking.

Robbie also previously opened up on other ways she was able to tap into her character, including listening to the Titanic soundtrack ahead of emotional scenes.

Speaking to Variety in an interview published on Nov. 12 ahead of her Talking Pictures episode, Robbie recalled a “surreal” moment when the 1997 film’s two leading stars were in the room next to her as she prepared for her scene.

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“I can even just hear the theme music of Titanic, and I’ll be bawling,” the Golden Globe nominee said. “And so that’s what I do on set if I need to cry in a scene.”

One particular day while filming The Wolf of Wall Street, Kate Winslet happened to visit her former costar on his new project.

“There was the big, crazy scene after I ask for a divorce and stuff. And Kate Winslet came to visit set, to visit Leo that day,” Robbie said. “I was in the room next to them, listening to the Titanic soundtrack trying to stay in sad, teary mode. And then I saw Kate Winslet and Leo walk past. It was very surreal.”