Margot Robbie’s new film: From Barbie to Saving the Wild’s NZ-based founder

Margot Robbie is set to produce a movie based on Jamie Joseph's charity, Saving the Wild. Photo / Saving the Wild

Inspirational New Zealand-based conservation activist Jamie Joseph has told Spy she has found a kindred spirit in Hollywood star Margot Robbie after this week’s news that the Barbie star is set to produce a movie based on her charity Saving the Wild.

“Margot is a phenomenal actress and producer, a cinematic chameleon,” says Joseph, whose chance meeting in Los Angeles with the star led to plans for the new movie.

Saving the Wild was set up in 2014, when Joseph – born in Zimbabwe and NZ-based since 2009 – was suddenly struck by the rising horror of Africa’s rhino and elephant poaching crisis. She returned to her motherland to try to make a difference.

In 2017, she exposed what she calls her “Blood Rhino Blacklist” - justice officials taking bribes on rhino poaching, child rape and other crimes against humanity. Her crusade has been supported by a number of famous faces, including English primatologist Dr Jane Goodall, American rockstar Dave Matthews and British singer-songwriter Leona Lewis.

NZ and global documentaries followed, gaining global attention for Saving the Wild’s relentless pursuit of the rhino poaching battlegrounds of KwaZulu-Natal and Kruger National Park.

The following year, Joseph was in LA for a Saving the Wild fundraiser and met producer Anthony Mastromauro, who told her she was “the Erin Brockovich of rhino poaching”.

He took her to a meeting at Robbie and husband Tom Ackerly’s production company LuckyChap Entertainment, which turned into sharing a drink that evening.

“And so it began… Margot and I just really hit it off, an instant connection, and the next morning Tom called Anthony and said, ‘Let’s do this, let’s make a movie!’” says Joseph.

In 2019, Robbie, Ackerly, Mastromauro and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Charles Randolph visited Joseph in her arena, the vast open plains of Kruger National Park.

Saving the Wild founder Jamie Joseph with an orphaned rhino in South Africa. Photo / Saving the Wild

“The first thing that stood out to them was the abundance and beauty of the wild. From landing at Skukuza airport in Kruger National Park to driving to the lodge one hour away, everyone was fizzing with excitement and commented on how they thought they wouldn’t see this many animals in a whole week, let alone an hour. Sadly, the whole time we were there, I think we only saw two rhinos, and one of them was dead,” says Joseph.

“I think for Margot, and for LuckyChap, this is the stuff of legacy. Not since Gorillas in the Mist has there been a movie that has the opportunity to save a species,” Joseph states.

The film will be a fictionalised version of Joseph’s life, produced by Robbie and Ackerly. It is set to cover many of the highs and lows the Zimbabwean-born New Zealand resident has faced, from getting sucked into the drug underworld in her teens because of her boyfriend to now taking on poachers and the justice system.

But whether Robbie will play Joseph in the movie is still under wraps.

“I can’t tell you that Margot will star until the script is signed off,” Joseph tells Spy. “That’s Hollywood process. It was the same with Barbie - it only came later that she was starring.”

Joseph has been struck by the common ground she shares with the Oscar-nominated star, saying they were both raised with their cousins in the dirt, one in Africa, one in Australia.

“We both have a deep connection to nature, and her trip into the wilds of South Africa meant a lot to her, to everyone in the team. An experience like that is a big motivator behind pushing forward with this movie, because there is nothing easy about getting a movie project off the ground, especially one that is as important and complicated as this one,” says Joseph.

Tom Ackerly, Charles Randolph, Margot Robbie and Jamie Joseph at Kruger National Park. Photo / Saving the Wild

Three years were lost due to the pandemic, and then the Hollywood strikes happened. Joseph was quietly devastated. She said so much could have been saved in those three years if they had the spotlight they now have. “The wheels of justice are suddenly turning!” Joseph says.

The team is aiming for a 2024 shooting script, and it’s not a moment too soon for Joseph, who says the cause needs this global spotlight urgently.

“It has been an incredibly hard and challenging eight years - this year was especially devastating, with 266 rhinos killed so far - and if it wasn’t for the support of New Zealanders donating to the cause, Saving the Wild would have been forced to shut down.”

Joseph will return to Godzone next month, a place she is grateful to come to every summer to recharge and spend time with her closest friends and family in the country that is her sanctuary.

“We’ve come a very long way in this crusade against corruption, and accomplished things that most thought were impossible. But we’re running out of time, and we need help - please.”

Saving the Wild has a team of brilliant pro bono attorneys now, and Joseph says they’re preparing to take the South African government to the highest court in the country and push for minimum sentence legislation for rhino poaching – which she says will be a game-changer.

“But in order to get this across the line in the next year or two, we need serious funding for advocacy.”

Jamie Joseph with a ranger in Kenya, tracking black rhinoceroses. Photo / Saving the Wild

Joseph is planning a dinner fundraising event in Auckland in February for the charity’s private donors.

“I’m going to ask my friends in Hollywood and the luxury safari industry to donate some very special items for our auction.”

Joseph worked in the NZ music festival scene when she first moved here, meeting with the likes of Kora, The Black Seeds and Tahuna Breaks. She says that these days, she believes there is a potential synergy with Teeks (musician Te Karehana Gardiner-Toi), and she would love for him to get involved with Saving the Wild.

“I was a huge fan of Teeks - long before he blew up. I think if he spent some time with us in the wilds of Africa, he would make even more extraordinary music.

“The rhino is sacred to the indigenous people of South Africa, so it’s not only a species they are losing, but pieces of their own evolution. Teeks would understand this, and we would really look after him.”

To support the cause, go to savethewild.com or @saving_the_wild on Instagram.