Margot Robbie has been totally transformed into her latest character, this time an infamous, real-life athlete: disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding. The usually ultra-glamorous Australian actress, 26, was photographed on the set of I, Tonya on Monday, January 16, and looked exactly like the ’90s Olympian.
The newlywed donned high-waisted jeans and a marbled sweater with equally ’90s volumnized curls and appeared to be wearing prosthetics to perfect Harding’s facial features.
The biopic brings back to life Harding’s 1994 attack of rival skater Nancy Kerrigan. In one of the biggest and most notorious sports scandals in American history, Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and bodyguard hired a hitman to injure Kerrigan seven weeks before the 1994 Winter Olympics. The hitman brutally clubbed Kerrigan in the knee while she was leaving practice in Detroit in an attempt to break her leg; the aftermath was captured on videotape, in which an injured, distraught Kerrigan cries “Why me?” Kerrigan ended up still making the Olympic team, however, and finished with the silver medal, while Harding ultimately fumbled after her lace broke and finished in 8th place.
Gillooly, who split from Harding in 1993, accepted a plea bargain in exchange for his testimony against Harding and was released from prison a year later in 1995. Harding avoided jail time by pleading guilty to hindering the prosecution. She received three years probation, 500 hours of community service, a $160,000 fine and was banned for life from the U.S. Figure Skating Association. In her 2008 autobiography The Tonya Tapes, she claimed that she wanted to inform the FBI about the planned attack but that Gillooly threatened her life. Following the scandal, Harding attempted a boxing career and appeared on Fox’s 2002 Celebrity Boxing event. She later quit the sport due to asthma.
I, Tonya, which is scheduled for a 2018 release, also stars Sebastian Stan as Jeff Gillooly, Allison Janney as LaVona Golden and Paul Walter Hauser as Shawn Eckhardt. The role of Kerrigan has yet to be announced.
