Babylon actress said that the ‘awful’ cigarettes gave her a ‘raspy voice’ needed for her role, and reminds her of how she sounded when she used to party too hard
Margot Robbie had to “chain-smoke” cigarettes that smelled and tasted “awful” to change her voice in her latest Hollywood hit.
The actress, 32, starred alongside Brad Pitt in new film Babylon which takes place in Hollywood’s most decadent age.
Orgies and drug taking appeared to be the norm for Robbie’s party animal character Nellie LaRoy as she battled to become a star.
Bad-boy LaRoy even bathed in champagne at swanky parties during a time when alcohol was banned in the US.
But unlike softly-spoken Robbie, her character was meant to have a raspy voice which she found tricky to nail down.
The Wolf of Wall Street actress said she required an unusual technique to get the right tone of voice.
She told Buzzfeed Australia: “Yeah so I’ve never smoked a real cigarette but I was chain smoking these fake cigarettes, that don’t have nicotine in it. They’re herbal cigarettes, but they smell terrible and they taste awful.
“Yeah I was just chain-smoking them because I needed to have a raspy voice.”
But smoking faux cigarettes wasn’t the only tactic the actress employed in order to portray LaRoy.
Robbie said that she strangely watched a lot of Jersey Shore in order to pin down the husky voice.
Robbie told Entertainment Weekly that: “Everyone who parties hard in their 20s, they have that husky voice.
“I had a husky voice when I partied too hard when I was younger.
“It’s such a sign of someone who’s living too hard and not taking care of themselves, not sleeping, drinking too much, all those things that I wanted people to just understand about Nellie without having to show it so much.”
However, smoking herbal cigarettes was just the tip of the iceberg.
She said that director Damien Chanzelle made them snort a “ridiculous” amount of white powder for the movie’s cocaine scenes.
She said: “I think the only note I gave Damien… obviously there’s a lot of drugs in this movie and I play a character who does tons of drugs.
“But he would have them rack up lines of coke that were just like the size of hot dogs.”
Like in all Hollywood movies, the drugs were not real.
And while there are stark differences between Robbie’s role and her real persona, there are some similarities.
She told NME: “Nellie is an aspiring actress. She’s like a tornado and she’s not going to let anyone stand in her way… like I love her so much. But she’s so exhausting.”
SOURCE: dailystar.co.uk
