Margot Robbie to Star in Film about Ice Skater Tonya Harding
Margot Robbie, the star of the hit film "The Wolf of Wall Street," is slated to play a real-life character in American figure skater Tonya Harding in an upcoming drama about the attack on Nancy Kerrigan before the start of the figure skating competitions of the 1994 Winter Olympics.
The Deadline first reported about the planned film with the working title "I, Tonya." Harding will be the protagonist, with the film focusing on her involvement on the iron bar attack on her rival, Kerrigan, which was supposedly intended to keep her out of the competition.
The Guardian reports that Steven Rogers wrote the screenplay and was the one who reached out to Harding for details about her life and the subsequent fallout when she was banned for life after she admitted that she knew about the attack after the fact.
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Harding came to prominence in the world of figure skating when she became the very first woman in the U.S. to land a triple axel jump during a major contest. Her pinnacle of success was winning the singles title during the 1991 U.S. figure skating championships. However, her career and life came crashing down when authorities figured out that it was her husband who hired men to attack her fierce rival, Kerrigan right before the 1994 Winter Games in Norway. Remarkably, Kerrigan had enough time to recover from her injuries and went on to win the silver medal. Harding for her part took another direction in her life, opting to release a sex tape with her husband in the hope of gaining fame back. She also participated in the TV show called "Celebrity Boxing."
The 25-year old Australian rose to fame after a superb performance as Naomi Lapaglia, in The Wolf of Wall Street. The Martin Scorsese hit gave her the ticket to Hollywood prominence, where she again is expected to impress observers with upcoming flicks like The Legend of Tarzan, where she is to play the character of Jane, and Suicide Squad, where she will be playing the villain Harley Quinn.
