The one song Margot Robbie could listen to forever: “It’s on my cry playlist”

Posted On June 13, 2025June 13, 2025

If you’re interested in cinema, there’s a chance you’re deeply invested in other art forms, too, like music. The power of a great song can have the same effect as watching a great film – it can shape your very being and leave a lasting impression on you. Music and film go hand in hand, and sometimes a great soundtrack can elevate a movie to unprecedented heights by encouraging tension, euphoria, or perhaps despair.

For Margot Robbie, who has risen to become one of the most successful actors of her generation thanks to roles in everything from Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street to Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster smash Barbie, music has often played a part in helping her prepare for certain performances. When a song inspires deep and intense feelings in you, it’s the perfect tool to induce the emotions you might need to express in a scene, which is why Robbie has one song that she goes to whenever she needs to channel sadness.

Talking to Cillian Murphy for Variety’s ‘Actors on Actors’ series, the pair discussed a song that featured at the end of Peaky Blinders’ heralded final episode, which Robbie has admitted to putting on her “cry playlist.” We’ve all got one – a playlist packed full of songs guaranteed to make us weep that only comes out on special occasions, perhaps when we’re going through a break-up or just having an unexplainably downbeat day.

The song in question is ‘All the Tired Horses’ by Lisa O’Neill, a cover of Bob Dylan’s 1970 track from Self Portrait, which, interestingly, only features a female choir, not Dylan’s actual voice. However, it seems Robbie prefers O’Neill’s version, explaining: “I love that song so much – it’s on my cry playlist. Like if I need to cry on set… It’s so good. I love it.” It makes sense for an actor to have a song that induces emotion as a go-to shortcut, otherwise they might have to risk having to rely on more painful methods, like rubbing menthol sticks around their eyes.

Crying on demand is surely a difficult exercise, and one that won’t always come easily. If you’re having a good day and all of a sudden you’re forced to think about something incredibly sad – maybe something that deeply resonates with something going on in your personal life – you’re then forced to face these feelings while doing a professional job.

A prime example of an actor who struggled to deal with the intense emotion required of her is Shelley Duvall in The Shining. Stanley Kubrick’s excessive demands for more and more takes of her crying caused her to have an emotional breakdown, her body unable to cope. 

Robbie’s decision to listen to emotional songs to get her in the mood for a scene is probably the safest way to go about it, although different actors have different ideas on the best way to get into character. At the end of the day, though, music is a foolproof way to inspire deep feelings, and for Robbie, it’s the moving charge of ‘All The Tired Horses’ that does it for her.

Related Topics