He Tarzan, she strong! The Legend of Tarzan director David Yates told Entertainment Weekly that he had Margot Robbie punch her hunk of a costar, Alexander Skarsgård, in the face during their steamy sex scene.
“They’re doing this love scene together, and I said [to Robbie], ‘Just slap Alex while you’re making love, just kind of give him a punch,’” Yates recalled. “It was sort of an earthy, sensual moment of her enjoying sex with Alex, and the only bruise he picked up during the entire shoot was probably that punch from Margot. Which says a lot about her feistiness.”
According to Yates and Skarsgård, it was key that Robbie’s Jane evoked that feistiness and that she wasn’t a damsel in distress, as the character originally was portrayed.
“It was very important that we didn’t want it to feel archaic or dated, where it’s like, tough guy has to save the poor girl,” Skarsgård added. “You have to feel that she’s strong and independent, and when you cast Margot, you’ll definitely get that.”
Yates’ take on the tale is different from the original 1912 story. In The Legend of Tarzan, which hits theaters on July 1, Tarzan, a.k.a. John Clayton III, finds himself living as a British gentleman in 1880s London with his wife, Jane, before flashbacks eventually cause him to move back to the dangerous Congo.
“It’s almost the opposite of the classic tale, where it’s about taming the beast,” Skarsgård previously told USA Today. “This is about a man who’s holding back and slowly, as you peel off the layers, he reverts back to a more animalistic state and lets that side of his personality out.”
