Margot Robbie thought she was going to be ‘arrested’ for improvisational Wolf of Wall Street scene

The Australian actor recalled thinking: ‘I’m going to get arrested, I’m pretty sure that’s assault, battery’

Margot Robbie has recalled being worried she would get arrested after going off script in her final audition for the Wolf of Wall Street.

The 34-year-old Australian actor, who starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated comedy thriller, recounted the memory during a recent episode of the Talking Pictures podcast.

Speaking about one of the scenes that called for her character to kiss DiCaprio’s stockbroker Jordan Belfort, she remembered walking over to him and thinking: “I could totally kiss Leonardo DiCaprio, and that would be awesome. I can’t wait to tell all of my friends this.

“And then I thought… nah. And just walloped him in the face,” Robbie said, recounting that “it was dead silence for what felt like an eternity but was probably three seconds.

“Then they just burst out laughing. Leo and Marty were laughing so hard, they said ‘that was great.’”

She remembered thinking at the time: “I’m going to get arrested, I’m pretty sure that’s assault, battery. 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.”

Robbie was only 22 when she landed her breakout role as Naomi Lapaglia, based on Nadine Macaluso, the ex-wife of the real-life Belfort, in the 2013 movie.

Margot Robbie starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2013 ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ (Appian Way/Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock)

She’s previously spoken about how she wasn’t prepared for the consequences of fame she experienced after the movie, calling it one of her “lowest moments.”

Reflecting on the privacy she lost following the movie, Robbie told Vanity Fair: “Something was happening in those early stages and it was all pretty awful, and I remember saying to my mom, ‘I don’t think I want to do this.”

“And she just looked at me, completely straight-faced, and was like, ‘Darling, I think it’s too late not to.’ That’s when I realized the only way was forward.”

Robbie has since gone on to become one of Hollywood’s most in-demand actors, leading movies such as Barbie (2023), Birds of Prey (2020) and I, Tonya (2017).

Elsewhere on the Talking Pictures podcast, she expressed surprise that her 2022 film Babylon flopped, saying she “still can’t figure out why people hated it.”

“I love it,” she said of Damien Chazelle’s notorious box office failure. “I know I am biased because I am very close to the project and I obviously believe in it, but I still can’t figure out why people hated it.

“I wonder if in 20 years people are going to be like, ‘Wait, Babylon didn’t do well at the time?’ Like when you hear that Shawshank Redemption was a failure at the time and you’re like, ‘How is that possible?’”