Margot Robbie Revealed the Secret To Her ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ Accent
The Wolf of Wall Street was Margot Robbie’s breakout role in Hollywood. In the film, Robbie played Leonardo Dicaprio’s character, Jordan Belfort’s wife, Naomi Lapaglia. Robbie spoke about how she prepared to play Naomi with Jimmy Kimmel in 2014.
Margot Robbie perfected her accent in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ by ‘pretending’ to have on ‘acrylic nails’
Robbie moved to Hollywood from Australia in the 2010s. Before her move, Robbie starred as Donna Freedman in the Australian soap opera Neighbours. After starring in Pan Am for one season, Robbie began auditioning for movie roles.
When she auditioned for The Wolf of Wall Street, Robbie knew her character was from Brooklyn, New York. During her interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, she detailed how she masked her Australian accent for the film. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Robbie’s acting coach at the time told her to “pretend that you’ve got acrylic nails on and they’ve just been painted, so they’re still wet.”
“I was like, ‘OK, cool, so how do I do the accent?’ And she was like, ‘Just do it!’ ” Robbie explained, adding that she also began talking with her hands waving in the air. “This attitude just came out of nowhere.”
Margot Robbie said she and her ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ character also had different styles
After The Wolf of Wall Street, Robbie went on to achieve success in different films. She played Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad and then again in Birds of Prey. Robbie also portrayed ice skater Tonya Harding in I, Tonya in 2017.
Although she found success after her big-screen debut, Robbie spoke to Grazia in August 2020 about The Wolf of Wall Street’s impact on her life. Throughout the interview, Robbie discussed working with DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese. Robbie then shared how she and Naomi’s fashion and beauty styles overlapped during filming. While Robbie enjoyed the over-the-top looks she wore in the movie, she said it took her a “minimum of two hours” to look like her character each day. The actor also said one part of Naomi’s appearance was the most challenging part of filming.
“I had to wear really long acrylic nails for the entire six-month shoot. It was a key element to my character. They were integral to her,” Robbie told the outlet. “It was incredibly inconvenient for my personal life. I don’t know how other women manage. The most mundane tasks were suddenly monumental tasks – unbuttoning buttons, texting, tying shoelaces, getting lids off things. I couldn’t believe how much it affected my life; it was so difficult.”
Margot Robbie opted to speak to Jordan Belfort’s real wife while she filmed ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’
In addition to working with an acting coach to understand Naomi more, Robbie also reached out to the woman who inspired her character. Robbie shared during a January 2014 interview with IndieWire that she spoke to Nadine Caridi while filming The Wolf of Wall Street. Caridi married Belfort in 1991, and the couple had two children- Chandler and Carter before they divorced in 2005.
Robbie told the outlet that although meeting Caridi wasn’t necessary for her to play Naomi, she thought it would be interesting to see Caridi’s perspective.
“I had the choice to meet her or not, and I opted to meet her, and I’m really glad I did. It ended up being really helpful,” Robbie said. “It wasn’t necessarily integral to meet her to form my character because I wasn’t trying to portray her. And I tried to explain that to her – I was creating a character that was in the same situation that she was in, that lived the life that she was in, but I was by no means trying to be her or portray her at that time.”
