Margot Robbie - 'I Felt So Alienated'

The Actress Tells Ok! What It Was Really Like Being A Queen.

- Hilary Morgan

Seeing her in Elizabethan get-up, it’s hard not to think that Margot Robbie was born to play the part of Queen Elizabeth I in the period drama Mary Queen of Scots. But her partaking in the film almost didn’t happen, after the 28-year-old refused to even consider the role. ‘I didn’t go to drama school. I didn’t go to university. I had it in my head that in order to play such a prominent historical character, I should be well-versed in this world. I didn’t feel like I deserved to play her,’ the actress admits. ‘Such iconic actors have played her, too. Cate Blanchett, Katharine Hepburn, Helen Mirren and Judi Dench. The list literally doesn’t stop. I was like, “I don’t belong in that group.” They’re insane. They’re so good.’

However, director Josie Rourke wasn’t having any of it – eventually convincing the Australian starlet that she was the ‘essential person’ to play the iconic Elizabeth. But had she known how involved her makeover was going to be, Margot might have stood her ground. ‘It was intense,’ she admits of the three and a half hours she would spend in the make-up chair each day.

Here, Margot chats makeovers, movies, her future and what it was like finally meeting her on-screen nemesis…

A lot of people are shocked by your radical transformation for this role. What was your first impression when you saw yourself as Queen Elizabeth I?