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For you youngsters out there, this won’t be a very big deal. But if you were around in the early 1990s, this is a BFD. Hollywood has finally decided to make a movie about Tonya Harding. Like, everything about Tonya Harding during the 1994 Olympics, and before and after. It was one of the craziest Olympic stories of all time, basically. Tonya Harding was the hard-scrabble ice skater who was looking to dethrone Nancy Kerrigan as America’s Ice Princess. Harding was actually more accomplished than Kerrigan, but Kerrigan got most of the press and attention because she “looked the part” of an ice princess. So Tonya and her husband hired some goons to take Kerrigan out of the competition. What’s amazing about this is that the story will be told through Tonya Harding’s perspective, and Harding actually worked with the screenwriter to get the authenticity of the story. And Deadline reports that Margot Robbie is now attached to play Harding. Which… I mean, I think that’s perfect. Truly.

Margot Robbie has come attached to I, Tonya, a script by Steven Rogers about the crazy story of Tonya Harding. Remember her? She was the ice princess who emerged from a poor upbringing and rough childhood in Portland, OR to rise to the top of the sport of figure skating with a ferocious determination and athleticism that allowed her to become the first American woman to complete the triple axel in major competitions. That propelled her to victory in the 1991 U.S. Figure Skating Championships and second in the World Championships.

She was expected to battle Nancy Kerrigan for gold in the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer. Of course, Harding is mostly known for the infamy that occurred when her husband, Jeff Gillooly, and a couple of hired thugs tried to incapacitate Kerrigan by breaking her leg. They merely bruised Kerrigan, got caught, and Gillooly turned against his wife as he tried to stay out of jail. Kerrigan wound up winning the silver medal at that Olympics, and the completely distracted Harding finished eighth as her life was circling the drain. As the ensuing scandal unfolded, the USFSA stripped Harding of her 1994 championship and banned her for life.

I, Tonya is being produced by Bryan Unkeless and his Clubhouse Pictures. Robbie also is coming aboard in a producing capacity through her LuckyChap Entertainment banner….There is no director on I, Tonya yet, but Robbie is taking it upon herself to find a filmmaker to build this project around herself. Financiers also are circling.

Depending on how it’s done, it has the potential to be another To Die For, the Gus Van Sant-directed film that starred Nicole Kidman in a tale of naked ambition and the price for fame. Rogers wrote his script after doing extensive interviews with both Harding and Gillooly, capturing the absurdity of what happened but also the tragic part of the Harding saga, and trying to come from nothing to prominence in a sport where most of the competitors are the children of wealthy families that can afford all the ice time and trainers needed to get to that high a level.

[From Deadline]

More and more, I find myself liking and respecting Margot Robbie. She got some of the best reviews from The Wolf of Wall Street, and many people are excited to see her Harley Quinn in The Suicide Squad (and it looks like she nailed the part too). If done correctly, playing Tonya Harding could be one of the best and juiciest roles of Margot’s career. It has everything from physical drama, emotional drama, bad hair, a sh-tty marriage and girl-on-girl theatrics. But it has to be handled the right way, or else it will just end up a Lifetime movie. But I’m really happy that Margot is attached and that she’s hellbent on making it the right way. A lot of beautiful young actresses would not want to play a character who is so low-class, you know? But I love that Margot is committed.

Photos courtesy of Getty, WENN.

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