Margot Robbie may have made a somewhat unrealistic pitch to the studio executives during her Barbie pitch, but it worked.
Detailing how she managed to convince the execs, Robbie told Collider in an interview that she “gave a series of examples” like Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic’s Park or any other movie that “made a ton of money for the studios over the years.”
“I think my pitch in the green-light meeting was the studios have prospered so much when they’re brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director,” she said of Oscar nominee Greta Gerwig taking on the project.
She continued, “And I was like, ‘And now you’ve got Barbie and Greta Gerwig.’ And I think I told them that it’d make a billion dollars, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make, okay?!”
While The Suicide Squad actress, 33, is perfectly cast for the titular role, she wasn’t keen on it in the first place.
As a producer, Robbie wasn’t insistent on being cast in the starring role and did not want the director to “feel pressured” into casting her in the lead.
“I was just really upfront about like, ‘I won’t be offended in the slightest. We could go to anyone. Whatever story you want to tell and whoever you want that to be, I support that” the Wolf of Wall Street alum told the outlet.
“I’ve got skin in the game as a producer, I don’t have skin in the game as an actor, so be free with that choice.’”
However, Gerwig was insistent on writing the role for her. “Eventually I just accepted that she did want me to play the role, and then she wrote it. She wrote me in and she wrote Ryan [Gosling] in, and it was our names printed in the script from the get-go: ‘Barbie – Margot, Ken – Ryan Gosling.’