Margot Robbie’s bizarre 2016 Vanity Fair profile recirculates online

As Margot Robbie’s star burns brighter than ever, a very strange 2016 interview with the Aussie actress has resurfaced online.

Actress Margot Robbie. Picture: Getty

As Margot Robbie’s star burns brighter than ever thanks to the global box office smash Barbie, a strange interview with the Aussie actress has resurfaced online.

The problem isn’t anything Robbie said in the 2016 Vanity Fair profile – it’s more how the Vanity Fair writer introduced the Queensland-born actress, at that time a 26-year-old breakout Hollywood star with her star turn as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad about to be released.

The writer, Rich Cohen, opens the interview by noting that America’s newest “girl next door” is actually an Australian import.

Margot Robbie, beautiful in a “minor key,” according to one Vanity Fair writer. Picture: Getty

He describes Robbie as beautiful – “not in that otherworldly, catwalk way but in a minor knock-around key …” He notes that her blonde hair has dark roots and she’s “tall but only with the help of certain shoes.”

“She can be sexy and composed even while naked but only in character,” he writes.

Having successful negged Robbie, he then moves on to her home country. “As I said, she is from Australia. To understand her, you should think about what that means. Australia is America 50 years ago, sunny and slow, a throwback, which is why you go there for throwback people.”

THROWBACK. PEOPLE. Eep. 2016 wasn’t that long ago, so it’s surprising the description of Robbie – and the people of Australia – as a land of “throwback people, sunny and slow” didn’t cause more of a stir at the time.

This Barbie is a Throwback Person! Picture: JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP

Then there’s this bizarre description of four of our biggest cities: “ They still live and die with the plot turns of soap operas in Melbourne and Perth, still dwell in a single mass market in Adelaide and Sydney.” (Huh?)

The wild introduction to the feature-length interview with Robbie has resurfaced online in recent days, and taken off given the renewed interest in the actress thanks to the Barbie film.

“With Margot Robbie all over the news again, I cannot stop thinking about the 2016 Vanity Fair profile of her that my country will never forget,” one Aussie writer tweeted along with a screenshot of the offending passage.

Others would’ve preferred to forget it. “Unhinged,” was one person on Twitter’s summation of the intro.

Another claimed they use the article in their feature writing class – “as a cautionary tale.”

“American writing about Australia becomes much easier to understand when you realise they don’t think Australians can read,” another person quipped.

The snippet from the interview also gained traction on the ‘S**t Americans Say’ Reddit, where one person asked: “Can someone explain what it means when they say Margot Robbie is beautiful in a ‘minor, knock-around key’? Are they saying she is ‘homely’? Also, has this person seen Margot Robbie?”

Another commenter summed up the Aussie response to the piece: “Yeah, right … as an Australian, you can f**k right off.”