Margot Robbie Plays It Cool on W Magazine’s Newest Cover

In the new biopic, I, Tonya, Margot Robbie goes against type to play someone who is the opposite of the bombshells she’s portrayed until now in films like Wolf of Wall Street, Focus and the Legend of Tarzan. Instead, she inhabits ice queen Tonya Harding, and it’s not pretty. Here’s why that’s a good thing: For her fearless, uninhibited performance, Robbie is getting some of the best reviews of her career, so good, in fact, the role may lead her to her first Academy Award nomination. She tells Lynn Hirschberg why the character stayed with her: “The more I became Tonya, the more I saw things from her point of view. I’m on her side 100 percent,” she says. “I don’t think she did anything but be different from what the world wanted. There are cool misfits, and then there is Tonya. She didn’t fit in. And I love that.” For her new W cover story, Robbie was photographed by Craig McDean and styled by Melanie Ward in cool-as-ever fall looks, from Calvin Klein to a sleek Nili Lotan jumpsuit. As Hirschberg writes, with her blond hair and engaged manner, “she can’t help but shine.”