Margot Robbie recently shared her ongoing puzzlement over the harsh reception to Babylon, her high-profile 2022 box office failure, during an appearance on the Talking Pictures podcast.
Co-starring Brad Pitt and directed by La La Land Oscar-winner Damien Chazelle, the sprawling Hollywood epic explored the tumultuous lives of silent film stars in the 1920s as they grappled with the transition to “talkies.”
Despite its $80 million production budget, Babylon was a commercial disappointment, earning only $15 million domestically and $63 million worldwide.
“I’m still saying that,” Robbie admitted when host Ben Mankiewicz expressed bewilderment over the backlash to the film.
“I love it. I don’t get it either. I know I’m biased because I was so close to the project and obviously believe in it, but I still can’t figure out why people hated it.
I wonder if, in 20 years, people will look back and be like, ‘Wait, Babylon didn’t do well at the time?’ It’s like when you hear Shawshank Redemption was a failure and you think, ‘How is that possible?’”
Robbie played Nellie LaRoy, a fiery rising star and Hollywood “It girl” loosely inspired by Clara Bow. Reflecting on her time working on the film, she had nothing but praise for Chazelle and his approach to directing.
“Damien is so thorough,” Robbie said. “What I loved about working with him is that he never let up. He always wanted more—more energy, more ideas. Even during prep, he was relentless.”
Robbie recalled an exhaustive process to determine Nellie’s accent, revealing the level of detail Chazelle demanded. “I gave him 51 different versions of an accent,” she shared.
“It was like performing a one-woman show. We started with Boston—what if Nellie’s from Boston? Then Arkansas.
I even did wild combinations, like Snooki from Jersey Shore mixed with Joe Pesci, or Fran Drescher crossed with Snooki. It was so specific. At one point, I actually counted: 51 accents.” While audiences largely rejected Babylon, critical responses were sharply divided.
Variety’s Peter Debruge described it as “an exuberantly messy look at La La Land’s early days — an acid spin on Singin’ in the Rain,” calling it “the last of a certain kind of movie: epic, extravagant, and so unreasonably expensive that pre-pandemic moviegoing habits would’ve been required to make its money back.”
Chazelle, who also appeared on the Talking Pictures podcast last year, reflected on the fallout from Babylon’s financial failure while discussing his next project.
“I’m in a sort of trepidatious state of mind,” he admitted. “I have no illusions—I won’t get a budget of Babylon’s size any time soon, or at least not for this next one.
Financially, Babylon didn’t work at all. You try not to let that affect your creative choices, but at some level, it inevitably does. Maybe that’s okay? I have mixed feelings about it. Who knows? Maybe I won’t even be able to get this one made. We’ll have to wait and see.”
