That Time Leonardo DiCaprio's Pal Convinced Margot Robbie To Improv During Her Famous Wolf Of Wall Street Scene (And It Made The Movie)
Good instincts!

When we talk about the best Margot Robbie movies the actress has made, it’s impossible to forget her performance in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street. It was her first major movie role before going on to make other big films, including Suicide Squad, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Barbie and her latest, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, which is among the latest of 2025 movie releases. When the Aussie looked back at her career so far, she gave some context on an unforgettable line from Wolf Of Wall Street.
While talking to Vogue, Robbie told the story behind one now famous scene between her role of Naomi Lapaglia and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort. Check out what she had to say:
I remember, do you know that line? ‘Who? Who? What are you a fucking owl?’ That wasn’t in the script either and Leo’s friend was visiting the set that day and he came up to me, he’s like ‘Oh, you know when he says like ‘Who’s Venice?’ He’s like ‘Do you know what a funny line is? Say, who? Who? What are you a fucking owl?’ And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, great idea. And then I did, and now it’s in the movie.
This moment is so quotable and memorable to The Wolf Of Wall Street. While we might want to give credit to the screenplay writer, Scorsese or even Margot Robbie, apparently the line came from one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s friends while he was on set. As she recalled, in between shooting the scene, he fed her the line, she went for it while the cameras were rolling, and voila!
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Robbie’s story speaks to the collaborative process of moviemaking, where some of the best ideas can come from the most unexpected places. The movie came at a time when Robbie was just breaking into Hollywood and wasn’t yet an influential producer. Even so, Robbie’s willingness to take a left field idea from someone outside the production shows what great instincts she has as an actor and creative mind. I also love that she gave credit where credit is due!
Robbie won the role of Naomi after an intense casting process when Scorsese saw her audition tape. The actress previously said that “no part” of her thought the director would actually see her tape, and she was overwhelmed when she heard that they wanted to see her come in and read with DiCaprio. The Barbie actress has also spoken about taking on that nude scene in a prior interview and why she was worried about filming one scene with DiCaprio.
Margot Robbie’s latest movie, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is now playing only in theaters.
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Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.
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