Margot Robbie has proven she was the perfect person to play Sharon Tate in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood after revealing in an interview with Vogue Australia she had a serious fascination with Tate and her tragic death.
Quentin Tarantino who directed the film also performed the interview with Margot and the pair reminisced back to their first meeting after she sent him a letter asking to be in one of his films.
It was during the chat that the Australian actress revealed her interest in Tate and the murders.
She said, “I felt like it was the most exciting meeting I’ll ever take in my life. I remember you said: ‘Do you know who Sharon Tate is?’ and I said: ‘Yes, I do’, because, funnily enough, after I first moved to LA, another Aussie actor Rhys Wakefield and I used to drive up to Cielo Drive [where the Manson Tate murders took place] and read Helter Skelter [a book written about the murders] out loud.”
Quentin responded, “No kidding, really?” And she said, “Yeah, seriously, that was our thing. We’d go in the middle of the night and read Helter Skelter out loud to freak ourselves out.”
“You never told me this!” the director added.
“I know. There are so many Hollywood stories and so many stories ingrained in Hollywood history and that’s one of the standouts,” she told him.
“So did I know Sharon Tate? Well, I knew all about her death. But I’d never ever looked into anything about her life and it wasn’t until reading your script that I suddenly went: ‘Oh my god, I’ve only ever thought about this woman dead.’ I had never taken a second to appreciate her life, and that’s what was so amazing and touching about your script.
“She became so alive on the page and alive in my imagination. I can see her doing all the things you had her doing, walking around or dancing in a bedroom or whatever it is. And then to go back and do all that research and watch all her movies and see her interviews – it was truly a great gift to focus on her life.”
It turns out that Margot didn’t even need to send Quentin the letter asking to be part of his next project because he already had her (and only her) in mind for the Tate role.
Quentin told her, “For me, there was no number two – it was you… It was damn near romantic the way the letter was written because it was so great. It was exactly what I wanted to hear. I couldn’t believe the happenstance of it all. Within a week we got together and were talking.”
It kind of feels like fate that Margot got the role in the end!