Margot Robbie has revealed she recently had her very own Notting Hill moment, where she busted a group of men in a pub discussing her blockbuster movie Barbie.
Just like in the cult ‘90s rom-com, where Julia Roberts’ movie star character embarrasses a group of men talking about her in a restaurant, the Australian actress encountered a very similar scenario at a drinking hole in Scotland.
Speaking at a SAG-AFTRA screening of the film in Los Angeles this week, Robbie told how she overheard men at a bucks night debating how Barbie had become a pop culture movement shortly after the movie’s release in July last year.
“I had this brilliant experience,” Robbie, 33, began. “I was in a pub in the middle of nowhere in Scotland and I listened for about 30 minutes to a group of guys on a bachelor party discussing the Barbie movie, not knowing that I was sitting two or three feet away from them.”
Robbie continued, “It was just truly fascinating. There were people at the table who refused to see the Barbie movie.
“One guy was like, ‘Dude, it is a cultural moment, don’t you want to be a part of culture?’ And the other guy was like, ‘I’ll never see it,’ and by the end he did want to see it. It was a whole thing.
“I wasn’t going to go up to them, but then I did.”
Before leaving the pub, Robbie casually waltzed up to the group of men who “lost it” when they discovered she was present.
“At the last minute as I was walking out I went to their table and I went ‘Thank you for seeing the Barbie movie’,” she added.
“It was very funny, they lost it. It took a full minute for them to realise and I was practically out the door and they went ‘Ohhhh’.
“People’s reactions to the movie have been the biggest reward of this entire experience.”
It comes after Robbie addressed her controversial Academy Awards snub in the Best Actress category, as well as Greta Gerwig’s omission for Best Director.
Backlash was swift after nominations were unveiled late January, and while Barbie scored an impressive eight nominations – including for Best Picture – many were left disgruntled at how the two women responsible for the film’s billion-dollar box office success were overlooked, while Ryan Gosling scored a Best Supporting Actor nod for playing Ken.
But Robbie conceded there was “no way to feel sad when you’re this blessed.”
“Obviously, I think Greta should be nominated as a director,” the three-time Oscar nominee added.
“What she did is a once-in-a-career, once-in-a-lifetime thing. What she pulled off, it really is.
“Everyone getting the nods that they’ve had is just incredible, and the Best Picture nod.
“We set out to do something that would shift culture, affect culture, just make some sort of impact. And it’s already done that and some, way more than we ever dreamt it would. And that is truly the biggest reward that could come out of all of this.”
