Margot Robbie Reveals It Was Her Decision To Go “Completely Naked” In ‘Wolf Of Wall Street’ – Despite Martin Scorsese’s Suggestions

Margot Robbie landed her breakout role in Martin Scorsese‘s Wolf of Wall Street at the ripe age of 23, but she revealed in a new interview that she wasn’t afraid to call the shots when it came to her character, the Duchess of Bay Ridge Naomi Lapaglia.

Robbie revealed as much during a recent chat on the Talking Pictures podcast where she reflected on the full-frontal nude scene she shared in the film with Leonardo DiCaprio.

“[Scorsese] said, ‘Maybe you can be wearing a robe if you’re not comfortable.’ And I was like, ‘That is not what she would do in that scene. She would not put a robe on,’” Robbie said of her character. “The whole point is that she’s going to come out completely naked—that’s the card she’s playing right now.”

Robbie explained that she wasn’t worried about appearing nude in the film until she realized she would have to explain it to her family.

“My bigger concerns weren’t even, ‘How did I come across as an actor,’ [but], ‘Oh, gosh, everyone’s going to see this, and I hadn’t really appreciated that until that point,” she said.

But she felt empowered to make such decisions on set, where she said the general feeling became, “If you want to be in this movie, you’ve got to make yourself known on screen.”

And she certainly made sure to leave a mark during her final audition.

The actress revealed on the podcast that she decided at the last minute to slap DiCaprio during her final audition for the role instead of kissing him, as the script called for.

“I thought, I could kiss Leonardo DiCaprio right now, and that would be awesome. I can’t wait to tell all of my friends this,” she recalled. “And then I thought… nah. And just walloped him in the face.”

She continued, “It was dead silence for what felt like an eternity but was probably three seconds. Then they just burst out laughing. Leo and Marty were laughing so hard, they said, ‘That was great.’”

But she immediately regretted the decision. “I was thinking, I’m going to get arrested, I’m pretty sure that’s assault, battery. Not only will you never work again, actually you will go to jail for this, you idiot. And also why did you have to hit him so hard? You should have done it lighter,’” she said on the podcast.

Robbie’s turn as the Duchess of Bay Ridge kickstarted her budding acting career. At that point, she had just a couple of credits under her belt with roles in the Australian soap Neighbours and the short-lived ABC series Pan Am.