NEW YORK When Margot Robbie read the script for I, Tonya, she assumed it was a work of fiction.

I never heard of the incident. I never heard any of their names, she told HuffPost during an interview at the Crosby Street Hotel in New York earlier this month. [It was] just written like it was meant to be a mockumentary style. Then I found out it was a true story completely true and I was shocked and enthralled by that.

How Robbie missed the international coverage of U.S. figure skater Tonya Harding who was accused of being involved in a vicious attack against fellow skater Nancy Kerrigan ahead of the 1994 Winter Olympics is anyones guess. But then, she was 3 years old at the time, growing up in a small town in Southern Queensland, Australia. That could explain why she was taken aback by the real-life plot of her buzzed-about new movie.

The producer and actress is earning praise for her raw portrayal of Harding, who was branded a ruthless rival following the horrible incident in Detroit. I, Tonya chronicles the Kerrigan scandal, albeit with the goal of showing viewers who Harding actually is and what kind of life she led during the height of her career.

Robbie was cozy in a chair when I walked into her hotel room at the Crosby last week to discuss the Craig Gillespie film. Her big blue eyes stared up at me to say hello before she calmly alerted her publicist to an incoming threat.

Theres a paparazzi guy taking pictures from down there, she said, pointing out the rooms floor-to-ceiling windows. I peeked outside along with the group, and, indeed, a paparazzo was lurking on a staircase across the street. We shut the curtains and moved the chairs to the other side of the room, where Robbie couldnt be captured by a long lens.

My friends wont walk with me through airports, she said as we settled in for our conversation. You can spot them a mile away. I can be walking somewhere and say theres paparazzi behind the tree, and everyones like, No, theres not. And Im like, Trust me.

Robbie has endured this kind of limelight ever since she moved to New York from Australia after nabbing a role on ABCs short-lived series Pan Am in 2011. She was already a TV celebrity in her home country, starring as Donna on Neighbours for three years, so she assumed she knew what was awaiting her in the Big Apple. She was wrong.