Margot Robbie, who will next be seen portraying Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad and Jane Porter in The Legend of Tarzan this summer, will be taking on yet another big role: Olympian figure skater Tonya Harding.
Robbie will star in I, Tonya, a biopic about Harding that will deal with the Olympian’s infamous scandal involving her competitor Nancy Kerrigan.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Harding was a dynamic figure in women’s figure skating. She was the first American woman to do a triple-axel jump in competition. She took first place in the 1990 and 1991 Skate America competition and the 1991 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. In addition, she finished in second place in the 1991 World Championships and in fourth place for the 1992 Winter Olympics.
In 1994, Harding became most widely known for the attack on her rival Kerrigan, who she was expected to compete with for the gold medal that year at the Winter Olympics. Her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and her bodyguard Shawn Eckhardt hired a man to break Kerrigan’s leg. Her leg was only bruised, but she had to withdraw from the US Championships, which Harding won. Kerrigan recovered before the Olympics, where she took the silver medal while Harding ended up in eighth place.
Harding and Gillooly pleaded guilty to the assault, and Harding was banned for life from the U.S. Figure Skating Association.
Steven Rogers, whose screenwriting resume includes Hope Floats, Love the Coopers, P.S. I Love You, and Kate & Leopold, will pen the script for I, Tonya. It is being produced by is being produced by Bryan Unkeless’ Clubhouse Pictures and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment. The film does not yet have a director.
