Margot Robbie channels disgraced Olympian figure-skater Tonya Harding in first teaser for I, Tonya

From the sexy, dysfunctional super villain Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad, Margot Robbie has transformed herself into one of the most talked about figure skaters in American history — Tonya Harding. The actress plays the Olympian in I,Tonya, the first teaser trailer for which was released on 19 October.

The Craig Gillespie-directed dark comedy focuses on the life of the disgraced athlete who was banned from the sport for life following her involvement in the 1994 attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan that attempted to break her leg and push her out of the competition.

The teaser opens with a look at Robbie as Harding, smoking a cigarette before putting it out with the blade of her ice-skating shoe.

"The haters always say 'Tonya, tell the truth.' There's no such thing as truth," the actress says in the voiceover. "I mean, it's b******t."

While the promo does not give us much to look at in terms of the actress' skating abilities, it does introduce us to Harding's tough, no-nonsense style.

Speaking to Vanity Fair in September, the Australian star explained that she did not have any idea who Harding was until she started researching the role. "To be honest, when I read the script, I didn't know who Tonya Harding was, and I didn't realize it was a true story. I thought it was entirely fictionalized and our writer Steve [Rogers] was so creative to come up with the quirky characters and absurd incidents," she told the magazine.

I, Tonya also stars Sebastian Stan, Caitlin Carver, Allison Janney Paul Walter Hauser, Julianne Nicholson, Bojana Novakovic, and Bobby Cannavale. The film releases in the US on 8 December and in the UK on 16 February, 2018.