Margot Robbie sent David O. Russell to sleep while filming 'Amsterdam'.

The 32-year-old actress portrays nurse Valerie Voze in the director's new period mystery and she told how he asked her to read a lengthy passage of dialogue and to make her tone as "relaxed" as possible.

When Margot saw the filmmaker was nodding off, she asked if she needed to add "more energy" - but David insisted she was reading exactly how he wanted, and then fell asleep completely.

She recalled to BBC Radio 1: “One day he made me come in to read, like, 40 pages of dialogue.

"I start to read and he says, ‘No, no, no. More calm, more relaxed’.

“So I did it again and he was like, ‘No, no, no. I want you to read it like you just took three Xanax’. I thought to myself, ‘I’m putting him to sleep’.

“He was [drifting off] like this, so I stop and ask him if he wants me to put more energy into it.

“And he goes, ‘No! You’re doing it perfectly’.“So I did the whole thing until he was fully asleep and snoring."

Margot previously revealed she forged a close bond with John David Washington working on the movie because they were "scared" about working under the unpredictable director, despite reassurance from co-star Christian Bale.

She said: "We immediately kind of clung to each other, like, 'OK, are you scared? Because I'm scared. Ah! What do we do?

"Then, you dive in headfirst and you have the time of your life, and Christian (Bale's) going like, 'Don't worry. It's always like this. You never know what's going to happen when you go to work that day', and you really don't, and that is thrilling."

Margot explained that it was straightforward finding chemistry with her co-stars on the "exciting creative experience".

She added: "Whenever you have a really fulfilling and interesting and exciting creative experience, you do come out bonded anyway, like anyone would.

"So, (the chemistry) wasn't something we really needed to work at. It was pretty easy."