Margot Robbie chose the bigger budget film alongside Will Smith, but fans believe she made a mistake in a role Emma Stone thrived in.

Nowadays, Margot Robbie is among the biggest stars in Hollywood. However, fans think she made a certain mistake during her career. One of those mistakes was starring alongside Will Smith in Focus.

This isn’t because the movie was terrible, but instead, fans felt as though there was a bigger offer on the table, despite its smaller budget.

We’ll take a look back at the film in question, Birdman. Emma Stone ended up taking the role and thrived in it. We’ll compare the two films, while taking a look at how Stone and Robbie felt about their individual projects at the time.

Margot Robbie and Quentin Tarantino had quite the reactions to a certain question about her role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Fans Didn’t Agree With Margot Robbie’s Choice To Pick Focus Over Birdman

In terms of box office success, the two films in question were very close to one another. Margot Robbie’s film Focus was released in 2015, and made $158 million off a $65 million budget. As for Birdman, the film made less at the box office, but it came with a tiny budget. Birdman brought in $103 million off an $18 million budget.

The gap was a little more evident in terms of the reviews. Focus was given an approval rating of 56% by Rotten Tomatoes, while Birdman enjoyed greater success in terms of reviews, with a 91% rating.

Robbie could have appeared in Birdman, but passed on the offer for Focus alongside Will Smith. Fans on Reddit seem to believe Robbie made a mistake in doing so. It is said that Robbie turned down the role of Sam in Birdman.

Fans wrote, “Well ain’t that a slap in the face…” Another fan comments, “Woah, I’d love to visit the alternate reality where Margot Robbie played Sam. Though I think Emma Stone is absolutely perfect in the role.”

Quentin Tarantino’s ovation at Cannes dragged on, and Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio And Margot Robbie clearly had enough of a camera in their faces.

Despite what fans think might’ve been the wrong choice, Robbie’s career did not suffer from it. She’s among the top stars in Hollywood today, and also had quite the casting experience alongside Will Smith.

Margot Robbie Didn’t Think She’d Get The Role In Focus Given Her Audition With Will Smith

When Margot Robbie was made aware of her Focus audition, she was out in Croatia backpacking with her brother. With no sleep, Robbie made it in time for the audition, though she was irked that Smith did not.

Robbie told off Will Smith, and felt as though she wouldn’t get the role.

“I was backpacking for a week with my brother on an island off Croatia. I end up having the craziest 24 hours of my life. I’m soaking wet because I’d been swimming, I get back to the hostel at 6 a.m., no sleep, turn my phone on, and I’ve got all these messages: ‘They want you to audition for Focus. Your flight leaves tonight.’ There’s only one catamaran to the mainland and it leaves in 20 minutes, so I’m grabbing my stuff and I race off and I get the ­catamaran, I get a bus to the airport, I get to the airport and wait six hours, I fly to France and wait another six hours, I fly to New York, and by the time I get to New York they’ve lost my luggage.”

Robbie continues, “My shoes are wet, my denim shorts are damp, I’ve got no makeup, no clothes, and I’d ­calculated that in the last 50-something hours I had six hours sleep in total, and I walk into the audition and it turns out Will was running late. “He comes in and says, ‘Sorry I’m late, I was coming from Queens.’ And I look at Will and I was like, ‘Yeah? Well, I just came from an island off Croatia and I’m here on time.’”

Margot Robbie had a similar reaction to what most fans were thinking after Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio’s reveal.

Ultimately, Robbie was stunned to find out that she got the role.

“When they hired me for Focus, they said they liked my audition,” she says. “I was like, ‘So I got the job because I looked like sh– and called Will Smith a di–?’ It worked out well. Acting 101, I guess.”

Emma Stone Took Her Career In A Different Direction After She Agreed To Birdman

Emma Stone stepped in and took the role of Sam in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Birdman. Stone compared Birdman to walking the tightrope. Stone admitted that the project was very different compared to what she was used to at the time.

She tells Deadline, “With Alejandro, I still don’t know what the budget would cover, honestly, but I knew I wanted to work with that man… On a smaller film everybody is there to make the same movie. There isn’t a separate trailer with six PAs talking to each other about you going to the bathroom—it’s like that on a bigger movie set.”

She continues, “And doing Cabaret now, it’s the same feeling like on Birdman—everybody relies on each other and you’re just a cog in a machine and that feeling is so much better than being treated like a precious stone.”

It all worked out in the end for Stone, who was irreplaceable in her role looking back.