In 2016, when the MeToo movement took place in the newsroom of Fox News with the blockbuster movie Bombshell, the director Jay Roach and Oscar-winning screenwriter Charles Randolph tried to re-make the toxic working environment helmed by Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who was alleged by some former female employees for his inappropriate behavior in work place and sexually harassing his female workers.
The movie is based on the sexual harassment culture and the documentation of the sexual harassment case of Fox News to dramatize the downfall of Chief Executive Officer of Fox News, Roger Ailes, at the hands of one of his sexual harassment accusers and his female employee Kayla Popsili, who he would sexually abuse and harassed.
Bombshell, the start studded blockbuster of 2019. The movie has been buzzing for a long time, initially for its star studded cast of famous faces portaying other real life famous faces Starring, Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly, also the producer of the movie. Megyn Kelly was the former news anchor in Fox News and published allegations against Ailes in her 2016 biography.
Nicole Kidman played as a real life Gretchen Carlson, the former host at the Fox News. She was an initial accuser of sexual harassment by Ailes. After her contract with the Fox News was expired and it wasn’t renew by the network, that’s when the sexual harassment case against the CEO Roger Ailes mounted. She filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes, accusing that her boss demanded for sexual relationship with her and that the Fox News deciding not to renew her contract was clear revenge for her refusal.
The inclusion of the lawsuit encouraged more than 20 women to come forward publicly with similar allegations like sexual harassment and behavior charges. The accusations made against Ailes were proven true which made him to surrender himself in shame.
Kayla Pospisil represented the story of 20 women accusers
If you ask, who is Kayla Pospisil based on? The real and short answer is no one person. Yes, for real! Margot Robbie incredibly portrayed the fictional character of Kayla Pospisil as a young associate producer at the Fox News. The incredible acting skills of Margot Robbie let the audience believe that the Kayla Pospisil must also be an existing character, but in reality it was just a representation of many victims.
The character of Kayla Pospisil was fictionally made up just because the filmmakers of the Bombshell wanted to keep the real women accusers of Ailes’ harassment protected from the legal consequences but they also wanted to tell the stories of women accusers. So the filmmakers came up with an idea to create a fictional character of Kayla Pospisil.
The fictional character Kayla Pospisil was inspired by the stories of 20 real women accusers who spoke to filmmakers about sexual harassment of Ailes. But the women accusers were not permitted to talk on the record about their experience. Those women rather shared their experience secretly and annonymously, which let the filmmaker of movie to create a fictional character out of the shared encounters of victims.
“We are not revealing the people we talk to. We are trying to protect them. We talked to some people … It was the weather lady who was still working at Fox when we started the movie and was undercover, almost like a whistleblower. But [Janice Dean] slipped the names to Megyn and Megyn did help get them to come forward.”
In short, the character of Kayla Pospisil is fictional and it isn’t based on a singular woman, but rather the records of several sexual assault victims of Ailes. So if Kayla Popisili feels familiar to you, you know why!
The fictional character of Margot Robbie as Kayla Pospisil became the heart of the story as it connects to the real events of real women. Robbie said that she feels responsible to characterize and demonstrate the women at Fox News who came forward and stood for themselves.
“Just because a character may be fictional, that doesn’t go away. I have played a number of real-life people before and I have always felt a huge amount of responsibility when doing that. Then I feel responsible for fictional characters I play too because they end up becoming really real to me. I felt a huge sense of responsibility to Harley to any. They exist in my mind. They have childhoods.”
Who is Kayla Pospisil?
Kayla Pospisil is a fictional employee at the Fox news network. She is a young traditional woman and belongs to a large Fox News-watching Republican party. Kayla is an associate producer who moves from program of Gretchen Carlson to The O’Reilly Factor. She is self-described as an “evangelical millennial.”
From her brilliant cross necklace to her wide eyes to her flawless blonde blowout which is supposed to emulate the sort of women Fox News is known for putting up front. She is delightful, passionate to God and the Republican family, a genuine Fox News supporter and sexually involved with other women.
Being in the signature bleached-blonde style of Fox, Kayla catches the eyes of the CEO Roger Ailes. As Kayla catches the eyes her boss, he promises to sponsor her to on-air talent but in exchange for sexual favors.
In an interview, Robbie said,
“She is real to me but in this particular case she is an amalgamation of a number of women’s stories and she’s even more real because of that. I have even more responsibility because of that but it’s also a privilege.”
The character of Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly and Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson are both well known for their real-life careers in the public spotlight. These two characters are the most two important and prominent personalities who gathered their guts and came forwarded with the allegations. On the other hand critics kept arguing about the role of Margot Robbie as a fictional character that,
“Robbie didn’t have to worry about portraying real-life people like Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly and Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson did.”
Margot Robbie refused to meet the accusers of Roger Ailes
Before the filming of the movie began, the cast of Bombshell was supposed to meet the with Roger Ailes accusers, but Margot refused to meet his accusers stating that, “These guys did spend a lot of time talking to these women and I was very fortunate to have that body of research and experiences there ready and available to me. I didn’t want to meet them personally. I felt that I needed that barrier which was a choice I struggled with here and there with different characters. If there’s that one element that I’m just not clicking with and I’ve met with real-life people that I’ve played and it’s unraveled for me, okay. In this case, there was so much research already and I got it.”