Yahoo News Margot Robbie on unnerving Babylon snake fight scene: 'Where's the closest hospital if I do get bit?'
Here's a scene Indiana Jones could never roll with: Director and writer Damien Chazelle's latest movie, Babylon, is chock-full of bonkers moments set amid the backdrop of old Hollywood, but one in particular, involving Margot Robbie's character, Nellie LaRoy, fighting a large rattlesnake with her bare hands, might take the cake.
Li Jun Li, whose character Lady Fay Zhu takes it upon herself to suck the venom from Nellie's neck when she — surprise! — gets bit, says she was nervous about the scene. "I don't know how you kept a straight face when [I sucked the venom], you laid there so still," she tells Robbie during an EW Around the Table discussion with fellow cast members Jean Smart, Diego Calva, Jovan Adepo, and Brad Pitt.
Li continues, "And then, Damien just kept saying 'Suck harder.' And, I'm just thinking, 'Oh, my God, this is so embarrassing.' And, all I could think about was —"
"The worst direction I've ever received: 'Suck harder,'" Pitt jokes.
Laughs aside, Li says that, because Robbie's eyes were closed during the sucking moment, she wanted to try telepathically communicating with her costar. "I really wanted to just say, 'I'm so sorry, Margot. I'm so sorry,'" she says.
Paramount Pictures Margot Robbie and Li Jun Li in 'Babylon'
But in show business the show must go on, and Li sucked the fake venom (which was made with honey and covered in sand) from the prosthetic wound on Robbie's neck before proceeding to kiss her. "If I were to give you an honest answer to how kissing Margot was, it was gritty," she says.
"She tasted like honey," Robbie adds. "I mean, the venom was honey. So it was gritty, yes, from all the sand. But it was also sweet."
"Ah, see the things we get to do?" kids Pitt.
For their costars, the whole snake fight was hard to watch, even though most of it involved a fake reptile. However, a real one was used for the moments preceding the fight, and there was no Plexiglass between Robbie and the animal, unnerving for her.
"I asked the [snake wrangler] if I got bitten how long I had, because we were far away," Robbie recalls. "I was like, 'Well, where's the closest hospital if I do get bit, and how long do I have before we don't get to the hospital?' He was pretty vague on the answer, too. I was like, 'I would love some specificity on this one.'"
However, the Aussie star had a backup plan. Says Robbie, "I was ready to run, though, if I had to."
Watch more with the Babylon cast in the video above, and check out the full conversation here.
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