Dear Gossips,
A few weeks ago, Sarah wrote about Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming project, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, starring Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio about an actor living next to Sharon Tate at the time of the Manson Murders. As Sarah noted, somehow a story about Sharon Tate is going to end up being about two men?
A couple of weeks after Sarah posted about Brad and Leo’s involvement, it was reported that Margot Robbie was in negotiations to star as Sharon Tate. Yesterday Chris Lee at Vulture noted that Margot has yet to be confirmed in the role and that the delay could have to do with Quentin’s recent controversies. Debra Tate, Sharon’s younger sister, has spoken out against him, calling out his “exploitative intent to use her sister’s 1969 murder as a plot device”.
“I am a vocal opponent of Mr. Tarantino’s film,” Tate, a victim advocate and the author of the essay collection Sharon Tate: Recollection, tells Vulture. “He has yet to reach out to me to talk to me about anything to do with my sister or her depiction in his film. Why? Because I believe it’s negative. If his depiction was positive, he’d have a dialogue with me.”
Chris Lee goes on to say that if opposition to the film continues to grow, the studio might start getting nervous about the response it will provoke on social media. And this could explain why Margot has still not yet signed on. What was most frustrating to me, though, and the reason I’m writing about this, is this detail at the end of Chris Lee’s Vulture piece from a Hollywood insider, on whether or not Margot will work with Quentin:
But to hear it from an influential agent turned manager who has guided clients to Academy Awards, not only will Tarantino’s latest feature go off without a hitch thanks to his cult of personality in Hollywood and transformative reputation as a filmmaker, Margot Robbie will go to any length necessary to appear in one of his productions. “If the question is, ‘Is Margot Robbie going to get cold feet?’ My intuition is, my gut is, she’ll do whatever it takes to work with Quentin Tarantino and suffer whatever it takes,” the manager says. “If crashing a car is the price of admission, she might do that — and then some.”
Any length necessary?
So if this “influential agent turned manager” with Oscar clients was advising Margot Robbie, Margot would be taking the job, joining what could be a problematic film, playing a real-life victim of violence and exploitation who may be relegated to a supporting role in a story about her life, for the honour and privilege of working with Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt, and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Is this progress?
Margot Robbie was just nominated for an Oscar in a film that SHE produced. I, Tonya was nominated for three Oscars. I, Tonya won an Oscar (Allison Janney) and was a major presence all through award season. In December her production company, LuckyChap, signed a first-look deal with Warner Bros TV to develop a television series. Just yesterday it was announced that LuckyChap will be working with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to “create a new television series based on a modern version of the works of Shakespeare, told from female perspectives and led by an all-female creative team”.
Margot Robbie is building off the momentum of I, Tonya and creating more work for herself, for her team. She is ON IT.
So is this what happens to an actress/producer who starts her own production company, produces an acclaimed award-winning film her first time out, and is continuing to generate content under her own banner? Some “influential agent turned manager” is still going to talk about her like she needs Quentin Tarantino more than he needs her?
This is the f-cksh-t that still persists in Hollywood. This is how women continue to be perceived, in Hollywood and beyond. Margot Robbie is coming off the biggest year of her career and it was, literally, self-produced. And yet there remains an establishment in Hollywood that believes that she’s actually so desperate that the next great move for her would be to align herself with Quentin Tarantino by “any length necessary”. When Mark Wahlberg did the same thing, they called him a mogul. Margot Robbie accomplishes it, at a younger age and sooner in her career than him, and they still think she needs a man to legitimise her.
If she has good people around her, and it seems like she does, they will send her that quote in Vulture. Because if it’s true that she’s hedging on this Tarantino project, that “influential agent turned manager’s” comment should pretty much confirm her doubts. Hard pass.
Have a great weekend!
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
