This article was originally published 18 January 2014

The 23-year-old Australian actress, who stars opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese's controversial new film, defends her decision to strip for the part

Margot Robbie is telling a story about the time she had to get from Croatia to New York in less than 48 hours for a last-minute audition with Will Smith.

The 23-year-old Australian actress was backpacking around Europe when she got the call. The previous day, she had been cave-diving in the Adriatic Sea, and had spent the night at a beach club, Carpe Diem, on the island of Hvar.

As she walked back to her hostel at around 6am, barefoot and wet from an early-morning swim, her agent rang and told her to get to the port and take the first catamaran to the mainland. She had a seat on a flight from Split to JFK with a six-hour stopover in Paris: if she made the boat, she would make the plane, and would be in New York with a couple of hours to spare.

Robbie describes the journey with wide eyes and big gestures, teasing out the seat-of-her-pants lunacy of it. She changed into her pyjamas for the flight, she says, only for the airline to lose her luggage, so she made a pit-stop at Topshop on Broadway, frantically grabbing outfits off the rails and getting changed in the taxi as it screeched towards the unmissable meeting.