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Post by Admin on Nov 3, 2017 19:43:55 GMT
“What kind of friggin’ person bashes in their friend’s knee?” Margot Robbie’s Tonya Harding asks in the new trailer for the biopic, “I, Tonya.” This preview gives us a pretty good idea. Robbie transforms herself to play the disgraced figure skater Harding, whose ex-husband arranged for a goon to smash the knee of rival Nancy Kerrigan before the 1994 Winter Olympics. The trailer highlights the abuse Harding endured as a kid from her mother, LaVona (Allison Janney), and the abuse the athlete dished out to others as an adult. The film chronicles the two-time Olympian’s humble origins, her marriage at the age of 19 to Jeff Gillooly (played by Sebastian Stan, who decided to do a little promotional work for the movie on his Instagram page with … mixed results), her rise to stardom, and her subsequent fall from grace. It particularly focuses on Harding’s complex relationship with her abusive, alcoholic mother, played by Allison Janney, whose temper and foul mouth both tormented Harding and drove her to stardom. Set to hit theaters December 8, I, Tonya will be eligible for the 2018 Academy Awards. The film is already garnering significant buzz for its two female stars, Robbie and Janney, and it seems like a happy (perhaps too happy) coincidence that final Oscars voting will be held during the upcoming Winter Olympics.
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Post by Admin on Nov 5, 2017 19:48:10 GMT
Neon’s I, Tonya explores the reality of Olympic figure skater Harding’s life, and the differing accounts of what happened when her U.S. rival Nancy Kerrigan was attacked and injured. With Margot Robbie in the title role, Rogers set out to show a side of Harding that nobody knew. “It was fascinating to really get Tonya’s backstory,” director Craig Gillespie told Deadline’s moderator Pete Hammond. Using the contradictory accounts from Rogers’ interviews with Tonya and her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly, the film cleverly presents several viewpoints. “We found in the edit [that] we made that deliberately less clear, so the audience had to concentrate to work out what version we were telling at that moment,” Gillespie said. Robbie said she decided how she would approach the role before she actually met Harding because she wanted “just to meet her as a person, I didn’t want it to feel like research.” Harding was “incredibly kind,” Robbie said. “She was like, ‘How are you learning to skate? Do you want me to help you train?’” One of the things that really helped Robbie present Harding without prejudice was that she didn’t know about the Kerrigan incident before seeing the script. “It was actually better that way, to approach it with fresh eyes,” she said. “The reality is she had a very hard life.”
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Post by Admin on Dec 3, 2017 19:29:16 GMT
It has been a dizzying ascent for Margot Robbie, from the Australian soap opera Neighbours to Hollywood, with roles in the TV series Pan Am and in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. But she truly announces herself as an actress with chops, and a chance to medal this awards season, with I, Tonya. In the Craig Gillespie-directed film, Robbie soars as the scandal-scarred US Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding. She turns an historically vilified white trash tabloid figure into a defiant underdog antihero, who threw up a finger to skating judges when they ignored her superior physical skills and resisted Harding as the image of their sport. Pushed as a child by a hard-edged mother as stingy with praise as she was generous with open-hand slaps (played hilariously by Allison Janney), Harding’s story previously belonged to the gossip hounds in the tabloids. Despite winning the 1991 US Championships when she became the first woman to successfully execute the gravity-defying triple axel, Harding’s place in sports history is one of ignominy because of her suspected complicity in the clumsy attempt by her abusive husband Jeff Gillooly (played by Sebastian Stan) to hobble her elegant rival Nancy Kerrigan before the 1994 Winter Olympics. Harding received a lifetime ban by the US Figure Skating Association, after pleading guilty to a charge of hindering the prosecution in the attack on Kerrigan. I, Tonya follows in the tradition of edgy black comedies Fargo and To Die For, with moments like the one we experienced in Fargo, which provokes laughs when Steve Buscemi is fed through a wood chipper, and only later do you wonder if there is something seriously wrong with you. Tonya Harding, her mother, her husband and his dim cohorts provide outrageously funny moments, juxtaposed by images of the skater being battered by those closest to her. Like the triple axel, there is a high degree of difficulty here.
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Post by Admin on Dec 13, 2017 19:22:38 GMT
On Tuesday, Dec. 5, former figure skater Tonya Harding made headlines when she attended the premiere of I, Tonya, along with Margot Robbie, Allison Janney, and Sebastian Stan. The release of I, Tonya and Harding's appearance on the red carpet have left the public wondering: Where is Tonya Harding now? Having been too young to remember Harding's story and the media frenzy that followed, Robbie — who plays Harding — researched interviews and footage of the athlete, explaining that she "wanted to see her as a character instead of replication her as a person." Then, a week before filming began, Robbie visited with the athlete. For those who may not know about Harding, allow me to explain. In 1991, when Harding was 20 years old, she won the U.S. figure skating championships and became the World Championship silver medalist, according to New York Times. During her time as a figure skater, Harding broke a number of records. She became the first American woman to perform a triple axel in an international skating event, and the first ever to complete a triple axel combination with the double toe loop. Harding was at the top of the U.S. women's figure skating food chain — but following these feats, her skating abilities declined, and she was unable to perform at her previous skill level again. Naturally, this hurt her career, which had already been rocky due to her unconventional style and attitude.
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Post by Admin on Dec 16, 2017 19:24:40 GMT
THE true story behind I, Tonya is so scandalous that even its starring actress, Margot Robbie, thought it was made-up. Released last weekend in the US and out here next month, the movie retells the gripping and controversial real life tale of Olympic figure skater, Tonya Harding, and the plot to injure her competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, before the 1994 Winter Olympics. Tonya Harding may have been the first American woman to complete a triple axel jump in competition, but her legacy will forever be defined by her association with an infamous, ill-conceived, and even more poorly executed attack on fellow competitor Nancy Kerrigan. The two skaters were rivals and they both had two different looks, styles and personalities. While Nancy was elegant on the ice, Tonya was athletic and determined. The pair were leading contenders for the two positions on the US Olympic figure skating team – and Tonya made no secret of wanting that gold medal. What actually happened? At the time of the US Figure Skating Championships in January 1994, Jeff Gillooly - Tonya Harding’s husband at the time - and her bodyguard Shawn Eckhardt hired a man, Shane Stant, to attack Nancy so that she couldn’t compete in the Winter Olympics. Shane Stant was paid $6,500 and Jeff Gillooly wanted Nancy’s right leg to be injured because that was her landing leg, and if she couldn’t land, she couldn’t skate.
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