Minor spoilers for Bombshell below:
One of the more surprising moments of Jay Roach's Bombshell -- which dramatizes the efforts of female Fox News employees to bring down abusive network honcho Roger Ailes -- happens between Margot Robbie's character, Kayla, and Kate McKinnon's character, Jess.
Jess is a closeted producer on Bill O'Reilly's Fox show, while Kayla is an ambitious staffer on the same program. Jess takes Kayla under her wing and after a boozy dinner together, they hook up. Jess is not only a closeted lesbian, but a secret Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter, while Kayla is a die-hard conservative who declares she's not queer even though she just had sex with a woman.
When envisioning the complicated Kayla, a composite character who suffers greatly under Ailes's sexual abuse and harassment, Robbie says she saw her ending up with a woman, though many years after her tenure at Fox. Robbie told Variety that Kayla compartmentalizes her attraction to women, seeing it as separate from her career ambitions and political leanings.
"And she is not going to acknowledge [her sexuality] until she's 60," Robbie told the magazine. When fleshing out the character of Kayla, Robbie saw her marrying numerous men, having kids, and then ending up with a very specific woman. Robbie said she had a clear picture in her mind of "the woman that she eventually leaves them for."
In regards to putting her sexuality in a box, Robbie told The Advocate something similar last month. At the end of Bombshell, Robbie's worldview has changed and her faith in conservative institutions like Fox News has shattered. "So in some ways, she's grown and evolved in a magnificent way in this film but in other ways, especially when it comes to sexuality, she's totally compartmentalized that and it's something she's not dealing with in this film," Robbie told The Advocate's Tracy Gilchrist.
Roach, the director, was open to Robbie's interpretation of Kayla, and the actress stressed to Variety she needs to have full visions for the characters she plays. She even imagined Kayla and Jess going on a road trip after the events of Bombshell, with their differing political beliefs put to the test.
