Margot Robbie reveals reason she’s still nicknamed ‘maggot’

18 January 2023

Margot Robbie thinks she got her “maggot” nickname after a substitute teacher made a roll call mistake.

Margot Robbie thinks she got her “maggot” nickname after a substitute teacher made a roll call mistake

The ‘Babylon’ actress, 32, told ‘The Project’ on Tuesday (17.01.23) she has had the moniker since the age of six due to the classroom stand-in mispronouncing her first name, and says she is amazed it is still being talked about more than two decades later.

She said: “That has been my nickname since I was six years old.

“I think a substitute teacher made a mistake on the roll call and said ‘maggot’ and everyone love laughed.

“You can’t pick a nickname – you get given it.”

Margot’s nickname is back in the spotlight after one of her childhood friends shouted: “Hey, maggot!” at the star when they reunited at the ‘Babylon’ premiere in Sydney, Australia.

The actress added on ‘The Project’ she hoped the teacher’s mistake would have been forgotten by lunch time, but has ended up still talking about it more than 20 years on.

She has said her new film ‘Babylon’ was a “wild ride” and added she feared filmmakers wouldn’t get away with its now famous cocaine-fuelled opening orgy scene.

The ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ actress, who plays self-destructive silent film star Nellie LaRoy in the film, added she started to wonder if certain images could be shown on screen when she read the script.

She made the admission while discussing the film during a chat at the end of 2022 with Carey Mulligan as part of Variety’s ‘Actors on Actors’ series.

Carey, 37, said its opening scene was an “enormously debauched” and “crazy, wild party” with “lots of people wearing very little or nothing”.

Margot agreed: “It’s pretty much a party-slash-orgy. It kind of turns into an orgy.

“When I read the script, I was like, ‘'This is like ‘La Dolce Vita’ and ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ had a baby – and I love it!

“But I was like, '’Are we allowed to show that? Are we allowed to show that?’'

“There were so many scenes where I was like, a) I have no idea how I’m going to do that, and b) are we going to get away with this?’”

When Carey said she had watched the film with her mum, Margot joked: “Everyone should see Babylon with their parents. It won’t be awkward at all.”

Margot’s co-star Brad Pitt, 59, has admitted he found the amount of nudity in the movie “shocking”.