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Upon the re-launch of GRAZIA Australia in May 2016, we spoke exclusively to Ellie Goulding, at length, about a disturbing notion in the media, a culture encouraged whereby female musicians and actresses are defined by the men they do or do not date. “I feel I’m an interesting person by myself, I don’t need anyone else to make me more interesting,” Goulding said at the time. “I think I flipped at one point when the first question I got asked was, ‘So you and blah, blah, when did that happen?’ and it’s like, I don’t need to be defined by people I’ve been in relationships with. It’s nobody’s business other than mine. I’m a very successful musician at this point and I feel like that’s vindication alone of why I’m here and I don’t need to be talked about in that way. I should be talked about in a celebrated way.”
Eighteen months on, Margot Robbie experiences the same thing. On the promotional trail for I, Tonya – a film in which she produces and stars in – a journalist asked her about her marriage to husband Tom Ackerley with whom she wed in Byron Bay last year.
“I had a boss moment the other day,” the actress told Page Six. “I was doing a press conference and they keep asking me what it was like to be married, and I said, ‘Being married is not my achievement. My achievement is producing this film and having a producing deal with a major studio — that is my achievement.’ And everyone shut up after that. It was really nice.”
I, Tonya is a dark comedy based on true events of the 90s, when figure skating champion Nancy Kerrigan was attacked with a bat outside a Detroit skating rink. Despite the injury – her right leg was bruised but not broken – she went on to compete at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway and won silver, while Harding came eighth. It was subsequently revealed that Tonya’s now ex-husband and her bodyguard hired a hitman to attack Kerrigan, and that Tonya was aware of it and conspired with them.
“It was an interesting time to reflect on media and how we as a society kind of eat up what we are given and what we are told in these little sound bites, and you pass judgment so quickly.” Robbie continued, talking about the film. “So I have learned not to judge so quickly.”
I, Tonya is in Australian cinemas in February 2018
