“I still can’t figure out why people hated it.”
Margot Robbie hopes the movie Babylon will eventually receive the recognition it deserves, even if it takes two decades. The film, directed by Damien Chazelle, struggled when released in 2022. It received mixed reviews and was a box office failure, making only $15 million in the U.S. and $65 million globally against its $80 million budget.
On the podcast Talking Pictures, Robbie shared that she is still puzzled by the film’s poor performance. Host Ben Mankiewicz mentioned that while watching Babylon, he kept asking himself, “Why don’t people like this movie?” Robbie agreed with his sentiment.
Advertisement I am still saying that, I love it. I know I am biased because I am very close to the project and I obviously believe in it, but I still can’t figure out why people hated it. I wonder if in 20 years people are going to be like, ‘Wait, Babylon didn’t do well at the time?’ Like when you hear that Shawshank Redemption was a failure at the time and you’re like like, ‘How is that possible?’
she said.
It’s been 30 years since The Shawshank Redemption hit theatres, and its reputation has grown stronger. When it first came out in the fall of 1994, the prison drama didn’t do well at the box office, earning just over $16 million. It did get seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor (for Morgan Freeman), but didn’t win any awards.
Over the years, the film became a cult favorite, helped by frequent showings on cable and popularity through DVD rentals. Today, The Shawshank Redemption is widely considered a classic.
Babylon, starring Margot Robbie, got some attention during awards season but won very little. It didn’t win in any of the three Oscar categories it was nominated for and only took home Best Score from its five Golden Globe nominations.
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The Hollywood epic, directed by Damien Chazelle, highlights the wild excess and chaos of 1920s Hollywood during the shift from silent films to talkies. Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy, a fiery “It” girl inspired by the real-life Clara Bow.
Despite the mixed reactions, Robbie was praised for her experience working on the film with the Whiplash and La La Land director.
Damien is so thorough. Do you know what I loved so much about working with him? I felt like no one had really put their foot to the floor with the gas, but he wanted that all the time. He wanted more always. Even when we were prepping. When we were trying to figure out what the accent should be for that character — this is what it’s like to work with Damien — I gave him 51 different versions of an accent. It was like doing a one-woman show. We started off with like Boston, Nellie is from Boston. Here’s what she sounds like if she’s from Arkansas. Then I got specific. ‘Here’s Nellie if she was a mixture of Snooki from the Jersey Shore and Joe Pesci.’ And he’d be like, ‘Okay, I’m liking the Snooki thing, but it worked better with such and such.’ And I’d go, ‘Now I’m going to be a little bit of Fran Drescher mixed with Snooki.’ This is how specific we got.
Robbie said
Robbie later realized she had given Chazelle 51 different voice options and decided to stop there.
I was like, ‘Damien you just have to pick one now, this is crazy.’ He was like, ‘I think she should just be from New Jersey.’ He’s from New Jersey.
Source: EW