Margot Robbie is no stranger to morphing her body for a role, as her booty shorts-rocking character in 2016's Suicide Squad proved. So she thought navigating figure skating to embody Tonya Harding in the recently released biopic I, Tonya would be easy. But as it turns out, even just a simple glide across the ice takes incredible strength. Here's how Robbie buckled down and shaped up to play the infamous skater America loves to hate.
She took advice from the real-life Tonya Harding.
Robbie assumed that a skater's strength comes from her legs, so she focused her training on that body part. Then she met with Harding. "I was like, 'I've been working on my legs. I'm trying to get stronger in my legs'," Robbie told People. Harding's response: "Forget that, worry about your core strength."
Margot did 100 sit ups every day.
After the fateful meeting with Harding, Robbie attempted to do at least 100 sit ups daily. Harding worked out with the same diligence in her heyday. As revealed on-screen in I,Tonya, to get back in Olympic shape, Harding executed Rocky-style training, like throwing logs and carrying water jugs through the back woods of Oregon.
She spent months on the ice.
There were two stunt doubles on set to pull of Harding's riskiest axels and lutzes, but Robbie trained hard before filming. "I think I did about three or four months of skating, like five times a week for a couple of hours a day," Robbie revealed to an interviewer at the Toronto Film Festival. "Even if I had 10 years to practice, I could never do a triple axel. I needed help."
Margot nabbed an Emmy-winning choreographer and coach.
Sarah Kawahara honed Robbie's skill at a Burbank, CA, rink, but before that, she'd scored an Emmy for her 2002 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony choreography and had worked with Nancy Kerrigan before and after the attack. "Margot did a lot of her own skating," Kawahara told IndieWire, adding that certain moves — a high kick, head rolls, robot arms — were all Robbie. "The amount of stuff that she could do was amazing. For that end sequence when she comes out on the ice, those 30 or 40 seconds with all those turns and spins, that's all Margot. She managed to be in it so much more than I expected," director Craig Gillespe told People.
Follow Delish on Instagram.
Download the Delish app.
