During the conversation, host Ben Mankiewicz admitted that he didn’t understand why viewers didn’t like it “Babylon”. “I feel the same way,” she replied Robbie.
“I love this movie. And I don’t understand it either. I know I’m not objective because I was very close to the project and of course I believed in it, but I still don’t understand why people hated it. I wonder if in 20 years people won’t they were surprised, like: wait, ‘Babylon’ didn’t make money? Now it’s like that with ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. It was a failure at the time of its premiere, and you wonder how it’s possible,” said the actress.
Robbie also couldn’t praise the film’s director enough. “Damien is so thorough. You know what I love about working with him? I felt like no one had ever really pushed the pedal to the metal before. And he wanted to do it all the time. He always wanted more. Even when we were getting ready,” she said.
As she worked on her character’s voice, she introduced Chazelle 51 variants. “It was a real monodrama. I started with a Boston accent. Nellie (Robbie’s character) is from Boston. That’s what she would sound like if she was from Arkansas. Then I got more specific. Here’s Nellie, who is a combination of Snookie from ‘The Jersey Gang.’ and Joe Pesci. And now Snookie with a hint of Fran Drescher. I was so detailed,” she recalled.
The film was supposed to be one of the hits of the 2023 awards season, but it was almost completely omitted from the most important categories. It received only three Oscar nominations – for music, set design and costumes. It also turned out to be a financial failure. It cost over $80 million. It grossed just $63 million worldwide.