Who hits Leo? C’mon, it’s Leo for God’s sake…
Margot Robbie firmly burst into mainstream consciousness following her role in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street.
Prior to that Irish people may have recognised her if they used to tune into Neighbours at half past five on weekdays, otherwise she was relatively unknown.
The movie propelled her to stardom and roles in Tarzan, Suicide Squad and Focus would soon follow.
To secure a role in such a high profile movie must have required her to make quite an impact during her casting session, and it seems she did.
“She clinched her part in The Wolf of Wall Street during our first meeting-by hauling off and giving Leonardo DiCaprio a thunderclap of a slap on the face,” Scorsese wrote about the scene in TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People issue.
Margot Robbie spoke about the scene herself when she appeared on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar.
“In my head I was like, ‘You have literally 30 seconds left in this room and if you don’t do something impressive nothing will ever come of it. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance, just take it.’ And so I start screaming at him and he’s yelling back at me. And he’s really scary. I can barely keep up.
“And he ends it saying, ‘You should be happy to have a husband like me. Now get over here and kiss me.’ So I walk up really close to his face and then I’m like, ‘Maybe I should kiss him. When else am I ever going to get a chance to kiss Leo DiCaprio, ever?’
“But another part of my brain clicks and I just go, Whack! I hit him in the face. And then I scream, ‘Fuck you!’ And that’s not in the script at all. The room just went dead silent and I froze,” Robbie said.
She revealed that she wasn’t sure how DiCaprio would react to the slap and feared she’d made an error. But then DiCaprio said to hit him again, and the rest is history.
