The Many Literary Roles of Margot Robbie
Birds of Prey came out this past weekend and we cannot stop thinking about Margot Robbie. We are sufficiently freaked out by her Harley Quinn role – primarily because she seems to jump right off the pages of a DC comic, but also because she’s a freakin’ supervillain! To celebrate the release of this movie – and the killer last few years Margot Robbie has had at the box office – we’re diving into her resume and turning over every literary role she’s ever played.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016)
We love thinking about Tina Fey and Margot Robbie teaming up and that’s exactly what happens in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, based on The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Kim Barker. Robbie plays Tanya Vanderpoel, a BBC News tv reporter who instantly bonds with and eventually befriends Fey’s character. (There aren’t very many female reporters covering the war, let alone living in the expat reporter house they all call home.) It’s an unexpectedly funny take on an incredibly serious subject, one that Robbie tackles with incredible grace. And while it didn’t make a huge splash at the box office, it still lives fondly in our hearts.
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Suicide Squad (2016)
We’ve already talked a little about Margot Robbie’s magnetic and terrifying role as Harley Quinn in the DC universe, but we can’t talk about literary adaptations without bringing up Suicide Squad, Robbie’s first appearance as the pigtailed supervillain. If you’re a fan who just can’t get enough – between Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey and the rumored Joker/Harley Quinn movie – dig into the back catalogue with the Harley Quinn Omnibus, 750 incredible pages of all Harley all the time. You’ll be pitching your own Harley Quinn script in no time.
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The Legend of Tarzan (2016)
You may not have heard of this particular Tarzan adaptation – and a quick look on Rotten Tomatoes will show you why – but somewhere in the universe, there exists a movie where Margot Robbie plays Jane to Alexander Skarsgård’s Tarzan and truly how have we never heard of this movie? Rather than tracking down this movie, imagine what could have been as you read the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels and unpack this deeply imperfect story.
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Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017)
In the Christopher Robin movie you’ve also never heard of – hello, Christopher Robin starring Ewan McGregor, which came out literally months later – Margot Robbie stars as Daphne Milne, the wife of Winnie the Pooh creator A.A. Milne. And because the internet hasn’t even deemed Daphne worthy of a Wikipedia page to call her own, we are so pleased to see her brought to life by such an incredible actor. Dive into some of our favorite Winnie the Pooh stories as you rediscover your childhood. We’re big fans of Now We Are Six.
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Peter Rabbit (2018)
And because we love those childhood stories so much, we’re so pleased that Margot Robbie not only narrated the recent Peter Rabbit movie, she also played Flopsy – the best rabbit in our opinion. And since there’s definitely going to be a Peter Rabbit II coming our way, we’re taking this opportunity to revisit Beatrix Potter’s incredible characters through the collected The World of Peter Rabbit. Go ahead and order these books for your nibblings, because it’s really a gift to yourself.
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