She's gained acclaim for films from The Wolf of Wall Street to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,
but how much do you really know about this multi-talented leading lady?
From her humble origins to her latest releases, this is the true story of Margot Robbie.
The fact that Margot Robbie is Australian can come as a surprise to even the most ardent
fan.
Of course, it's probably a testament to her skill as an actor that this central part of
her life is so well-camouflaged.
People often think of Robbie with Tonya Harding's flat intonation, or Harley Quinn's charmingly
nasal sing-song voice.
What they don't realize is that she's as positively Aussie as they come.
Robbie grew up in the Gold Coast hinterland, part of the state of Queensland and known
worldwide for its natural beauty.
Everything from rainforest hikes, wine tasting experiences, and bird-watching trips are enjoyed
by the countless number of tourists who flock to this part of Australia every year but Robbie
herself spent much of her childhood working.
One of four children raised by a single mother, Robbie grew up traveling between her mother's
house and her grandparents' farm.
Since her mother's family raised grain and her father's family farmed sugarcane and mangoes,
she grew up tending to a wide variety of crops.
Funnily enough, this actually ended up helping her during filming on the post-apocalyptic
drama Z for Zachariah.
As she joked in an interview with Vanity Fair:
"I already knew how to drive a tractor and milk cows."
To most of the world, it would seem like Robbie has had a meteoric rise in Hollywood from
The Wolf of Wall Street to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, she's dominated the cineplex
for the past few years with a treasure trove of distinctive roles.
Crass figure skating legend?
Done.
Queen Elizabeth the First at the height of her rivalry with Mary, Queen of Scots?
Check.
Sharon Tate at the apex of her career?
Bringo.
And given her 2020-and-beyond slate is filled up with roles like the eponymous doll in Barbie,
she doesn't show any sign of slowing down soon, either.
But in her native Australia, it took all that buzz just to get people to stop thinking of
her as a soap opera star.
Cast in 2008 as Donna Freedman on Neighbours, Robbie saw the character through from guest
part to recurring role.
A confident, slightly goofy character, Robbie turned Donna into a fan favorite who audiences
loved to watch mature from teen fangirl into fiery young woman.
She did it so well, in fact, that she garnered a Logie Award for Popular Actress and acclaim
for portraying Freedman's bisexuality with compassion and courage.
To most of the world, Robbie is a bona fide movie star but to many Australians, she'll
always be Donna.
The routes to stardom are many and varied.
Sometimes all an actor really needs is one chance to show their stuff.
Sometimes they're the right person's friend.
Sometimes they have a unique skill that no one else can offer.
And sometimes, they're just enormously, heart-warmingly earnest.
Robbie has walked more than one path on her way to stardom, but that last tack taken might
be the most important of all.
As she told Vogue:
"I've always been a huge huge Tarantino fan."
So huge, in fact, that Robbie vowed to send him a letter expressing her appreciation once
she thought she'd gained enough prominence to do so.
After producing and starring in the award-winning I, Tonya, Robbie felt she had the backing
to reach out to the legendary director.
She later recalled:
“So I wrote him and said, ‘I adore your films, and I would love to work with you in
some capacity.
Or any capacity.”
"Ohhhhhh, That's a bingo!"
Tarantino was charmed, Robbie was game, and the exchange led to her taking the role of
Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Just goes to show that, sometimes, all it takes is an honest word.
One thing Margot Robbie's life story has made very clear is her drive and commitment to
everything she puts her name to.
It pushes her into increasingly demanding acting roles, fascinating character choices,
and even some surprising hobbies.
But her energy isn't confined to her work in front of the camera Robbie has also thrown
herself wholeheartedly into movie production as well.
Founded in 2017, her LuckyChap Entertainment production company hit the ground running
in a major way.
Though Birds of Prey will be their most high-profile early release, LuckyChap has already sold
its half-hour series Dollface, starring Kat Dennings, to Hulu.
They've also premiered the company's indie thriller Dreamland, and are gearing up for
Barbie, starring Robbie as the titular doll.
Being involved on the production side of Hollywood is the dream for many actors, but the passion,
dedication, and sheer tenacity it demands tends to deter most of them.
Not Robbie, though.
LuckyChap is involved in an ever-expanding slate of projects over the next few years,
nearly all of them centering around women.
And since Robbie has been wowing audiences for years with her performing acumen, the
chances are good she'll flourish behind the camera, too.
Suicide Squad's lackluster reviews didn't matter much when it came to Harley Quinn's
own fate.
Even years after its release, Halloween is still pretty much just a gathering of Daddy's
Little Monsters all sporting Robbie's signature two-tone pigtails.
On top of that, Quinn is set to claim an animated series all her own, and Robbie will star in
Birds of Prey without the Joker in tow.
Robbie isn't just starring in and producing Birds of Prey, however she developed and pitched
it herself to DC after Suicide Squad's debut.
In 2018, she remarked:
"I pitched the idea of an R-rated girl gang film including Harley, because I was like,
'Harley needs friends.'
Harley loves interacting with people, so don't ever make her do a standalone film.
She's got to be with other people, it should be a girl gang."
As snippets of the inventive costume design and hugely exciting casting leaked into a
Harley-hungry internet, the movie's anticipation only has only proved Robbie right: The world
wants superheroines, and she's the woman to deliver it to them.
Suicide Squad's production and subsequent promotion was as much of an event as the movie
itself.
Jared Leto shocked his castmates by offering them disturbing, in-character gifts.
Posters featured everything from psychedelic cereal bowls to mushroom clouds.
Perhaps most dramatic of all, however, were the tattoos many of the cast got matching
"SKWAD" tattoos - spelled S-K-W-A-D because… well, misspellings are cool? - to commemorate
their time together.
This sparked a new interest for Robbie, and now the star has given tattoos to a number
of friends, colleagues, and loved ones using a tattoo gun she bought on eBay.
"Well, at first I really had to beg people and then it became a thing and people approach
me now and say yeah, I’ll get one it’ll be funny."
Though she doesn't claim much in the way of skill and actually alleges that she might
be "getting worse", her interest in the art of ink is real.
If you're willing to get into Robbie's chair, like buddy Cara Delevingne was, you might
just find yourself with something as innocuous as smiley faces on the bottom of your toes.
Of course, according to Robbie, they tend to rub off in a few days due to the nature
of the soles of the feet, so hey why not do what Harley would do and take a wild chance?
Actors garner a lot of odd skills over the course of their careers.
And Robbie is no exception: Suicide Squad had her doing "a tremendous amount of her
own stunts," according to producer Richard Suckle.
He explained:
"I went on set and I was watching the monitor and the camera was moving but she was doing
something that I could've sworn, for sure, she had to be in a harness, and, I kid you
not, she was not in a harness."
The sequence Suckle is referring to here is the infamous elevator scene in which Harley
runs up the side of an elevator wall and backflips onto a bad guy.
That's right: That was Robbie herself, defying gravity in spiked heels and a face full of
makeup.
But that's not even the most impressive feat she pulled off as part of DC's zany ode to
the scum of the superheroic world.
In order to film a pivotal underwater scene, Robbie worked with a free diver and learned
to hold her breath for an extended period of time.
"But I could do a resting breath hold of 5 minutes which meant I could do a…
“You could hold your breath for 5 minutes?”
“Yeah!
Which I never thought was possible."
Robbie might play a clown, but she certainly doesn't train like one.
Robbie's character in The Wolf of Wall Street, Naomi LaPaglia, is basically a life-size Barbie,
both in her beautiful blonde looks and in the way her husband, Leonardo DiCaprio's Jordan
Belfort, treats her like more of a possession than a person.
And Robbie ended up connecting to the character best through, of all things, manicures.
After her acting coach told her to imagine having just had her nails done, Robbie found
herself immediately able to channel the character's brash Brooklyn attitude, and she ultimately
requested acrylic nails to further her performance.
She told The New York Times:
"You can't tuck your hair back the way you would, you can't wipe away tears the way you
would, because you've got nails that are an inch long."
That's not the only quirk that helped along her performance, though: She also indulged
in a little liquid courage for some of her more revealing scenes.
She later remarked:
"I did three shots of tequila and then took my clothes off and did the scene and I was
fine.
Acting 101: three shots of tequila and you'll be fine."
In the age of the omnipresent superhero, more than one actor has pulled double (or even
triple) duty.
Chris Evans, Marvel's beloved Captain America, played the Human Torch in 2005's Fantastic
Four.
Samuel L. Jackson played the sort of psychotic monster Nick Fury usually works to thwart
as the Octopus in 2008's The Spirit.
Ben Affleck might not be Batman anymore, but he'll probably always be the only guy who
can say he played both the Dark Knight and Daredevil.
Margot Robbie never actually got that far, but she came close when she passed on playing
Sue Storm in 2015's Fantastic Four.
She told the New York Daily News:
"I didn't really resonate with the script.
But I had a great meeting with the director and I really enjoyed that.
I guess it's part of the game: Sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some."
And you can't help but wonder if she might feel as though she dodged a bullet.
Fantastic Four, in which Kate Mara played Sue Storm, ended up a critical disaster and
a box office bomb, with no further installments in sight.
Margot Robbie is no stranger to the physical demands of the actor's life.
She learned to ice skate like an Olympian for the title role in I, Tonya, in addition
to taking part in rigorous weight training.
Harley Quinn had her strapping on ankle weights and exploring pilates.
But there's one line she won't cross, and she found it while preparing for her role
in The Legend of Tarzan.
Producers wanted her Jane Porter, Tarzan's legendary love interest, to look even more
slender than Robbie normally does.
Robbie pushed back, arguing:
"It's the 19th century [in the film] if she's got a bit of weight on her, it's probably
a good thing.
I'm not going to look thin just for the sake of it."
Robbie got her way, and her Jane Porter is a ferocious delight to behold.
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