Margot Robbie is still baffled by the reception of “Babylon.”
Damien Chazelle‘s 2022 epic was a box office dud, grossing only $15 million (domestic) on a budget within the $80 million range. Lead star Robbie said during the “Talking Pictures” podcast on TK that she still doesn’t understand why audiences didn’t show up for the sprawling feature that received mixed reviews and was iced out of awards season.
“I love it. I don’t get it either,” Robbie said of why the film was not well-received. “I know I am biased because I am very close to the project and I obviously believe in it, but I still can’t figure out why people hated it.”
She added, “I wonder if in 20 years people are going to be like, ‘Wait, “Babylon” didn’t do well at the time?’ Like when you hear that ‘Shawshank Redemption’ was a failure at the time and you’re like like, ‘How is that possible?’”
Robbie starred as actress Nellie LaRoy, who was based on the real-life Clara Bow. Robbie cited her unique process of developing the character.
“When we were trying to figure out what the accent should be for that character, I gave him 51 different versions of an accent,” Robbie said. “It was like doing a one woman show. We started off with like Boston. Nellie is from Boston. Here’s what she sounds like if she’s from Arkansas. Then I got specific. Here is Nellie if she was a mixture of Snookie from the ‘Jersey Shore’ and Joe Pesci. Now I’m going to be a little bit of Fran Drescher mixed with Snookie. This is how specific we got. At one point I counted all the voice things I offered him at that point and it was 51.”
She added of working with Chazelle, “Damian is so thorough. Do you know what I loved so much about working with him? I felt like no one had really put their foot to the floor with the gas, but he wanted that all the time. He wanted more always, even when we were prepping.”
Chazelle previously told Insider that he was proud of the divisive film.
“It’s good to have something that stimulates conversation and debate and a lot of fierce opinions on either side. We all knew the movie was gonna ruffle some feathers and get some people mad, and I think that’s good,” Chazelle said. “More movies should do that.”
