Margot Robbie to play disgraced ice skater Tonya Harding
The Wolf of Wall Street actress is to star in a biopic of the athlete banned from the sport over an attack on her Olympic rival
Margot Robbie is set to star as Tonya Harding in a biopic of the disgraced ice skater.
The Suicide Squad actress will also serve as co-producer on I, Tonya, which has been scripted by Hope Floats and PS I Love You writer Steven Rogers.
No director is yet attached to the film, reports Entertainment Weekly.
Tonya Harding was the people’s champion who rose from a background of childhood poverty and abuse to take the silver medal at the 1991 Figure Skating World Championships. But the dream turned to scandal three years later when Harding’s ex-husband and bodyguard hired a thug to break the leg of her main Olympic rival, Nancy Kerrigan.
After being struck on the thigh with a baton, Kerrigan was forced to withdraw from the 1994 US championships. Fortunately, her leg wasn’t broken, and she went on to take silver at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer seven weeks later.
Harding was subsequently stripped of her titles and banned for life from figure skating, after the sport’s governing body concluded she had known of the attack in advance.
