PREVIEW

Margot Robbie doesn't understand why audiences 'really hated' Babylon. In Damien Chazelle's film, the Australian star played Nellie LaRoy, an actress who struggles to navigate the switch from silent movies to talkies in the 1920s. The film was met with mixed reviews from critics and became a box office bomb in late 2022. Reflecting on Babylon's failure on the Talking Pictures podcast, Robbie admitted she was still asking herself why people didn't like it. ”I love it. I don't get (the reaction) either. I know I'm biased because I'm very close to the project and so obviously I believe in it. I still can't figure out why people really hated it.” The Barbie star then expressed hope that Babylon will find its audience one day. ”I often wonder if, in 20 years, people are gonna be like, 'Wait, Babylon didn't do well at the time? That's crazy!' You know, when you hear something like Shawshank Redemption was a failure at the time, or whatever it is, and you're like how is that possible?”. The Shawshank Redemption, starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins, was a box office disappointment when it was released in 1994 but has since became a popular and culturally significant film. While Babylon wasn't well received, Robbie still enjoyed her experience working with the "thorough" and "specific" La La Land director. To illustrate Chazelle's specificity, the I, Tonya star recalled recording 51 different variations of the American accent to find Nellie's voice. ”We started off with like, 'Here's Boston. Here's what Nellie sounds like if she's from Boston, here's what Nellie sounds like if she's from Arkansas, here's what Nellie sounds like if she's from wherever.” "Then we'd get specific and I'd be like, 'Here's Nellie if she was a mixture of Snooki from Jersey Shore and Joe Pesci.’" "At one point, I counted all the voice recordings I had on my phone and realised I had offered him up 51 different accents at that point. I was like, 'Damien, you just have to pick one now, this is crazy…’”, she added, noting that they settled on a New Jersey accent.
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