Margot Robbie to play disgraced Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding | Margot Robbie
Margot Robbie This article is more than 7 years oldMargot Robbie to play disgraced Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding
This article is more than 7 years oldAustralian actor will also produce film about Harding’s 1994 battle with rival Nancy Kerrigan, which attracted some of the highest US TV viewing figures in Winter Olympics history
The Wolf of Wall Street’s Margot Robbie looks set to play the disgraced American figure skater Tonya Harding in a drama about the incident in which Harding’s rival Nancy Kerrigan was attacked with an iron bar at a competition prior to the 1994 Winter Olympics, according to Deadline.
I, Tonya is based on a screenplay by Steven Rogers (Love the Coopers), who conducted extensive interviews with Harding and her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly. Robbie will also be a producer and aims to find a director for the project.
Harding, who grew up in poverty in Portland, Oregon, was the first American woman to land a triple axel jump in a major competition. She won the ladies’ singles title at the 1991 US figure skating championships and was second at that year’s world championships. Controversy erupted when Gillooly was arrested for hiring men to attack Kerrigan at a competition before the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway.
Kerrigan, who came from a privileged background, recovered in time to compete at the Olympics, where she won a silver medal. Harding threatened to sue the American figure skating authorities if they removed her from the competition, and went on to finish in eighth place. The pair’s battle attracted some of the highest US television viewing figures in Winter Olympics history.
After she admitted that she knew about the attack after the fact, Harding was banned for life and stripped of her 1994 US championship gold. She later released a sex tape with Gillooly and competed on the TV show Celebrity Boxing.
Actor and producer Robbie has been on an upward trajectory in Hollywood since shooting her breakthrough turn as Naomi Lapaglia, the second wife of Jordan Belfort in Martin Scorsese’s black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street. She will next appear as Jane in The Legend of Tarzan and as supervillain Harley Quinn in the comic book epic Suicide Squad.
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