The Oscars are a few days away. How are you feeling about the impending ceremony?

The fact that we [LuckyChap] are even going to the Oscars with this film is like Tonya Harding going to the Olympics. I feel like people are going to say, “How did you riff-raff get into this prestigious event?” It’s symbolic of Tonya’s journey and being like, “F*** it. I’m here. Take it or leave it.” What made people find Tonya abrasive was that she was unapologetic for who she was. That’s why playing her was so liberating. I’m constantly apologising. I hate that about myself.

You took Tonya to the Golden Globes last month. How did everyone react to her?

People were starstruck. At one point Gal Gadot came up to us and said, “Margot, this must be your mother.” And I said, “No, no. This is actually Tonya Harding,” and she said, “What? The Tonya Harding?” Tonya got her picture taken with Meryl [Streep], she walked straight up to Tom Hanks. Then there was this absurd collision of worlds where Tonya and Tommy Wiseau [eccentric director of The Room, played by James Franco in The Disaster Artist] ran into each other, and neither of them knew who the other one was. Everyone couldn’t have got their iPhones out quick enough.

Do you feel that Tonya has finally found some acceptance in the wake of the film? 

I do get the impression that she’s found some sort of closure. I flew to Oregon and met her just before we shot the film, and when we spoke about everything, [it was obvious  that] she hadn’t let it go yet. I asked Sebastian [Stan, who plays Gillooly]  if he was the same when he met  him. And he said, “Not at all.” That devastated me. Now that her name  is being said in a more positive conversation, I think she’s found a way to close the chapter, to some extent.

Did you relate to her as a hustler?

I take ‘hustler’ as a compliment. I see Tonya as a hustler and an underdog. When I read the script I was looking for a female gangster film. But I, Tonya is the premise of a gangster film – an underdog rising to the top despite circumstances. But she wasn’t seen that way back then. Announcers would say: “And this is Tonya Harding, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks.” Like, why are you here? That made me so angry. She was vilified because she wasn’t the kind of woman [the US Figure Skating Association] wanted. They put other women like Nancy on a pedestal because she looked and behaved the way that they wanted a woman to look and behave.

Tonya and Nancy were also pitted against one another by the media… 

The tabloids would put two women on the cover with a jagged line down the centre under the words ‘catfight’. They do the same thing today. It’s frustrating we haven’t evolved in any way.

The matter-of-fact tone in which Tonya’s abuse is presented has been criticised, and yet I feel it’s the most pertinent aspect of the film. Violence is normalised for Tonya, just as sexual harassment has been for  so many women… 

That was the whole point. When all of these assault allegations started coming forward,  I remember hearing half of them and thinking, ‘I didn’t know that was classified as assault or sexual harassment’. I just chalked it up to  a sleazy guy being sleazy. That goes to show that when a problem can be so prevalent in society, we just accept it as a way of life.  I’ve definitely gone back through my  memories and now I’m reassessing things with the view of, ‘OK, that’s not acceptable behaviour, and why did  I accept it at the time?’

Sexism isn’t just a male preserve. Do you think that we as women also need to check ourselves, and our attitudes to each other, for real change to happen?

Yeah, absolutely. It used to really baffle me when I was younger that when a woman’s boyfriend cheated on her, she would go f***ing ballistic  at the other chick, not at him. I always thought, ‘What bullsh*t psychology is going on here? What is going on in our heads?’ That’s why I love the strong solidarity that’s going on between women at the moment.

It’s great now that women are getting angry on one another’s behalf, as they did over your Vanity Fair story… 

You know what’s so funny? I didn’t even blink when I read it. I’ve read more sexist stuff written about me, but it’s just that I didn’t have the profile back then for anyone to care. The fact that people spoke out and said, “That’s not OK” is amazing.

Margot Robbie on why women should stop apologising