Even Margot Robbie was weirded out by her Vanity Fair cover story.
In an interview on Network Ten’s “The Project,” Robbie said her interview with Rich Cohen, a Vanity Fair contributing editor and co-creator of HBO’s now-canned “Vinyl,” was unusual.
“I remember thinking, ‘Oh, so that was a really odd interview. I don’t know how that’s going to come out,’” Robbie said.
The piece was mocked on social media for Cohen’s sexist descriptions of Robbie and his strange references to Australia.
“When I read it, I was like, yeah, the tone of this is really weird. Like I don’t really know what he’s trying to get at or play at,” the actress said.
For reference, here are the first few sentences of the piece:
America is so far gone, we have to go to Australia to find a girl next door. In case you’ve missed it, her name is Margot Robbie. She is 26 and beautiful, not in that otherworldly, catwalk way but in a minor knock-around key, a blue mood, a slow dance. She is blonde but dark at the roots. She is tall but only with the help of certain shoes. She can be sexy and composed even while naked but only in character. As I said, she is from Australia. To understand her, you should think about what that means. Australia is America 50 years ago, sunny and slow, a throwback, which is why you go there for throwback people. They still live and die with the plot turns of soap operas in Melbourne and Perth, still dwell in a single mass market in Adelaide and Sydney. In the morning, they watch Australia’s Today show. In other words, it’s just like America, only different.
Robbie said that even after she read the finished piece, she didn’t expect the uproar over to be as large as it was.
“I’ve read far more offensive, far more sexist, insulting, derogatory, disgusting things on a daily basis,” Robbie said. “I don’t know, maybe I’m desensitized to it now.”
Though the actress hadn’t previously commented about the piece, she said the reactions gave her more Aussie pride.
“I was like, ‘Don’t mess with the Aussies. Don’t you mess with the Aussies. Look what happens when you mess with Australia,” she said.
Watch the video above.