As an up-and-coming star in Hollywood, you really have to pull out all the stops to get noticed.

But Neighbours actress Margot Robbie perhaps got a little carried away when she ended up hitting Leonardo DiCaprio in the face during an improvised audition.

The 24-year-old Australian says she thought she was never going to work again after getting physical with the Titanic actor in front of legendary director Martin Scorsese, in a camera call for The Wolf of Wall Street.

"I get home at six in the morning to all these missed phone calls and my team is saying, 'You are on a plane in a couple of hours to New York to read with Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio,'" she says, recalling the incident in a cover interview out this month with Harper's Bazaar.

"So: race to the airport, get to New York, go straight to see [casting director] Ellen Lewis, she takes one look at me, I’m wearing jeans, flat boots, and she says, 'No. Here’s what you’re going to do: SoHo’s right there. Lots of stores. You’re going to get a really tight, short dress and the highest pair of heels you can find.'"

'You’re definitely never going to work again'; Margot Robbie on the moment she face-slapped Leonardo DiCaprio