Margot Robbie on playing Barbie: “we’re going to give you something totally different.”

Margot Robbie
Share this Article:

Margot Robbie has been chatting about the upcoming Barbie movie – and just how it should subvert expectations a little.

We all know that movies based on toys can go either way. Much like actually playing with small shapes of colourful plastic, how much fun you have really depends on your level of imagination.

Whether it be Battleship or The LEGO Movie, the levels of creativity with which the filmmakers approach the source material of toys  is usually key to creating something that captures and holds our imagination. Margot Robbie – with that in mind – has been chatting to The Hollywood Reporter about her upcoming Barbie project, which she is also producing.

The film has the rather exciting creative team of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach behind it, and Robbie has promised that it won’t be what many expect. She said that “something like Barbie where the IP, the name itself, people immediately have an idea of ‘oh, Margot is playing Barbie, I know what that is’, but our goal is to be like ‘Whatever you’re thinking, we’re going to give you something totally different — the thing you didn’t know you wanted.'”

On deciding to take the project, Robbie was equally adamant that the film would challenge stereotypes, whereas the iconic Mattel toy upon which the film is based has been accused for many years of the opposite. As she argues, “can we truly honour the IP and the fan base and also surprise people? Because if we can do all that and provoke a thoughtful conversation, then we’re really firing on all cylinders.”

Unlike many recent critics, Robbie also struck an optimistic note about Warner Bros, with whom she has a deal (and most recently made Birds Of Prey with). Speaking about the studio’s decision to port its entire 2021 slate of films over to a simultaneous streaming release on their HBO Max platform, Robbie said that “we know there are people at Warner Bros. whom we have brilliant relationships with that are very talent-friendly and are responsible for the incredible reputation Warner Bros has had over the past decades as the predominant talent-forward studio. We are hopeful that this will work itself out and that Warner Bros will do right by its storytellers”.

Robbie was talking ahead of the release of Promising Young Woman, starring Carey Mulligan and produced by LuckyChap Entertainment. We’ll update you with more news on Robbie’s Barbie project as we hear it.

 

Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:

Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.

Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here.

Become a Patron here.

Share this Article:

More like this