CULTURE

Margot Robbie Is Officially Joining Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood

She'll be playing the late Sharon Tate.

by Marissa G. Muller

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CRAIG MCDEAN

Margot Robbie has officially joined the cast of Hollywood’s buzziest movie. After rumors swirled that she would be playing Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski’s late wife who was murdered while pregnant by Charles Manson’s disciples, it has been confirmed, as Deadline reports.

The Oscar-nominated actress will be in good company for the Quentin Tarantino-helmed film, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, which debuts August 9, 2019. She’ll be working alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays former Western TV show actor Rick Dalton that lives next to Tate, and his character’s stunt double Cliff Booth played by Brad Pitt. She also may be co-starring with Boogie Nights’ Burt Reynolds.

Reynolds is apparently the first choice to play George Spahn, according to Deadline, who was a real-life character that loaned his L.A. ranch to Manson to use as headquarters. The 80-year-old man was coaxed by Manson along with his female followers who the cult leader forced into exchanging sex with Spahn for rent, as Deadline notes. Outside of Reynolds, Tarantino is reportedly eyeing The Hateful Eight‘s Tim Roth, Kurt Russell and Michael Madsen for other roles.

In other Robbie news, the actress opened up about the decision to hire Cathy Yan as director of Robbie’s upcoming Harley Quinn spinoff film — a historical move that makes Yan the first Asian woman to direct a DC Comics movie. “Well, it’s a female girl gang film,” Robbie told IndieWire. “Historically, female filmmakers aren’t given the same opportunities, and we all need to be making conscious efforts to even out those statistics. But beyond that, there was going to be so many integral female characters in this story, in the Harley Quinn one, the girl gang film, that I wanted a truly female point of view and perspective on telling that story.”

Another reason Robbie tapped Yan to direct is that she had the best grasp of the material. “It’s just fun to work on anything for that long and then hear someone understand what you’ve been looking at on the page for three years, and have them come in and speak about it,” the actress said. “It’s exciting.” No doubt.