Forgotten film that launched Margot Robbie's career

News.com.au

2 days ago

Everybody has to start somewhere, and same goes for Margot Robbie.
Before the Aussie actress became a big deal in Hollywood, starring opposite the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling, she was a wannabe actress trying to get her foot in the door right here in the Australian entertainment industry.
But Robbie's star quality was undeniable, and it wasn't long before she was cast in her first-ever feature film.
Aussie filmmaker Aash Aaron was Robbie's acting coach back in the day, who also cast and directed the star in her first two films: Vigilante and I.C.U..
Although the horror thriller I.C.U. was technically her first film, the action drama Vigilante was released first in 2008 – and it's available to stream now for free on Tubi.
Speaking to news.com.au's Andrew Bucklow, Aaron recalled the exact moment he met Robbie and immediately knew she was destined for the big screen.
'When I met Margot, I was casting my first movie with acting students of mine that I wrote for them, which is I.C.U. And the main girl who was playing the lead actress in that movie was struggling with her schoolwork and couldn't really commit to the movie. So I was ready to go and I didn't have an actor.'
So the director put feelers out and one of the actors on the film brought half a dozen actresses to audition for Aaron, among them was an 'enthusiastic' Robbie, who at the time wanted to be an actress so badly, she was studying events management as a way to hopefully get into the entertainment industry.
'Someone said to me, 'You gotta meet this girl because if anyone's gonna be the first female prime minister of Australia, it's gonna be this girl. She's a go-getter,'' he recalled.
'I talked to all the girls, but I didn't even need to see them act. I'm an acting teacher, and I just said to [Margot], 'If you are prepared to do exactly what I tell you to do, and allow me to train you for six months, you can have the lead role in this movie.' And of course she said yes. She just didn't believe it was ever possible.'
In I.C.U., Robbie plays one of three teens who spy on their neighbours, one of which they've uncovered is a sadistic killer. Meanwhile, in Vigilante Robbie plays the girlfriend of a rich young man who goes rogue after her rape and murder, training himself to become a deadly weapon against any wrongdoers who cross his path.
'It's kind of like a realistic take on a Batman character as in, you know, he's got some money, so he's gonna go and learn martial arts and drive around the city at night and basically just take his aggression out on anybody who's doing wrong because he believes in his mind that he'll never be able to find the people that did this to him. So he takes his anger out on bad people he encounters,' Aaron said.
Vigilante was such a low-budget film that Aaron revealed 'guerrilla tactics' were used to get the entire movie filmed in two weeks on the Gold Coast. However, it was still a 'do-ability budget', and it helped that Robbie was a class act.
'I've taught a lot of actors and people have asked me what is different about Margot than most actors, and I said to them, 'She is the perfect student where she will do what you tell her to do.' Like, if you had to tell someone that they had to stand on their head in the corner to find a character, most people would go, 'What? Why?' She would just go, 'OK.''
'Whatever you ask her to do, she would do. So when I trained her in acting, because I was the first person to train her in acting, she would just do exactly what she was told to do. We rehearsed the movie and when we shot all three kids in the first movie, they were just perfect.'
It was in I.C.U. that Aaron knew a star was born.
'It was only in the climax of the first movie that I actually turned to my wife – who was on set with me and Sarie [Kessler], Margot's mum – and I just looked at her and said, 'There is a star.' And her mum was like, 'Really?''
'I said, 'She's like an a young Angelina Jolie. She's amazing.' She flicked at the climax of the scene and that was when I believed that she could actually go for it. Then I cast her in the next movie I did, six months later, Vigilante.'
Robbie caught the acting bug and went on the score a role in Neighbours, with a little guidance from Aaron.
'I helped her get her first couple of agents and when she said, 'How do I get onto Neighbours?' I told her what she needed to do and then she was like, 'OK,'' Aaron recalled. 'That was just her. She's like the Terminator. You tell her what to do, and she would just go for it. That's the difference. A lot of people just wait for the phone to ring, but she was just a go-getter.'
'I've always said that I teach actors to be Hollywood-ready rather than just all the rubbish that a lot of acting teachers teach,' he added. 'And she was the one who put everything into practice and proved that my techniques work.'