Welcome to the Jungle: From DC universe to monkey business

‘Suicide Squad’ actor Margot Robbie roped in for upcoming Tarzan film

LOS ANGELES: With her cut-glass cheekbones, porcelain skin and cascading flaxen locks, it is hard to imagine a better choice to play Tarzan’s love interest than Australian actor Margot Robbie.

But the 25-year-old, who appears as Jane in The Legend of Tarzan, the latest take on one of Hollywood’s most enduring colonial era adventure stories, is anything but a shrinking violet. “I’ve never wanted to play the damsel in distress, and Jane is anything but,” said the actor, who rose to worldwide fame starring in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street.

Robbie agreed early on with director David Yates that her take on Jane Porter, and later Lady Greystoke, in the 51st live-action Tarzan movie would be a feisty character, capable of fighting back. In one memorable scene, Belgian ruler Leopold II’s dastardly henchman Leon Rom, played by Christoph Waltz, demands of a captured Jane that she scream to attract Tarzan’s attention, and instead she spits in his face. It is a gesture of the kind of fiery insouciance common in the roles Robbie has picked, from her portrayal of the feisty Naomi Lapaglia in The Wolf of Wall Street to the villainous Harley Quinn in the much anticipated Suicide Squad from DC Comics.



The Queensland native, whose first regular acting job was in Aussie soap Neighbours, is enjoying an unusual trajectory in an industry where many actors complain of the shallow roles they are offered. Studies consistently show that men outnumber women by up to three to one among speaking parts in feature films, with the few starring female roles often largely just foils for the male star.

“I think it’s definitely improving. And I think people have finally recognised that half the ticket sales are coming from women,” said Robbie. “And if they don’t create the kind of roles that women are going to be able to relate to, then they’re not going to enjoy watching them as much … And if they don’t enjoy watching them as much, they’re not going to be able to make their money. I think they needed to recognise that and I think the industry has really responded in a positive way and people are really making an effort.”



Robbie shared that she is still offered parts that strike her as problematic, but senses that producers and directors are keen to work with her to give the role more depth.

The Legend of Tarzan picks up the King of the Jungle’s story several years after his adventures in Africa with Jane. Now a parliamentarian in London, Lord Greystoke is persuaded by Samuel L Jackson’s former US civil war soldier George Washington Williams to go back to the Congo Free State to investigate reports that Leopold II is engaged in mass enslavement of the locals. Jackson said he visited Washington’s grave in Blackpool, northwestern England, last year, while shooting Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

“George is a pretty fascinating guy,” said the 67-year-old Hollywood veteran.” He fought in the civil war, underage, and had this darkness about him that took him to the Mexican-American War where he joined the cavalry and ended up killing a whole bunch of Indians, which disturbed him greatly.” Jackson described Tarzan as “an origin story more than anything else.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2016.

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