SHE may have been snubbed by the Oscars for her role as Barbie, but Margot Robbie doesn’t need to be told she’s the best by a group of greying film buffs.
Margot was unfortunately snubbed by the Oscars for her role as Barbie
Brains, beauty, a wicked sense of humour and a love of pubs have meant she hasn’t put a step wrong since arriving in LA as a fresh-faced Australian ingénue.
In just 18 months, she went from appearing in Neighbours to starring in Martin Scorsese’s blockbuster The Wolf Of Wall Street in 2013, which she auditioned for after a big night out.
Barbie may not have won all the awards that Margot and director Greta Gerwig had hoped for – too pink, too fluffy, too girlie when compared to all the serious male stuff about nuclear weapons – but when it comes to the box office, Barbie won big.
Her production company is also behind another of the big hits of the year – psychological thriller Saltburn, directed by Emerald Fennell, who bagged an Oscar in 2021 for another movie she produced with Margot, Promising Young Woman.
While Saltburn may not have been universally loved by the critics, it has proved to be one of the most-talked-about releases of the year.
While some actors take producer credits and do very little, for Margot, 33, the behind-the-scenes work is becoming a huge motivator.
Barbie was a passion project that she pursued for years, and it was her idea to ask Greta Gerwig to write and direct the film and to go up against Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
Chuck Roven, the producer of the rival film asked her to move their release date, but Margot refused, saying that if he was afraid of the competition, he should move his date.
The rivalry created a genuine worldwide film event that finally got people back into the cinemas after Covid drove them away.
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Barbie becomes first film directed by a woman to rake in a billion dollars — in just 17 days
Margot is a movie fanatic – she once said 1940s classic The Philadelphia Story was her favourite film.
But she’s not out of touch with the mainstream.
She adores British reality shows, which she got into while living in London in her 20s with her now-husband Tom Ackerley, 33.
In fact, she loves Love Island so much that she once had a Casa-Amor-themed party – and she even personally cast series five contestant Chris Taylor in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo role in the Barbie movie.
Love Island contestants were also among the guests of honour on the Barbie premiere pink carpet.
She’s a feminist, too, quietly using her power to champion women.
“She’s unbelievable, she changed my life,” British writer Emerald said of Margot while on the red carpet for Saltburn last year.
She will lie down on the road to protect her film-makers, especially women
Emerald Fennell
“It is almost not possible for somebody to be the way that she is, which is so talented, so grounded, so remarkable and experienced.
“What Margot does that’s really exceptional is she never, ever uses her great power unless it’s to support somebody.
“She will lie down on the road to protect her film-makers, especially women.
“And she’s changing things. She’s a really amazing person.”
Equally gushing was Barbie’s director Greta, who described Margot as “incredible”, so much so that she says she was thrilled to discover that Margot does actually have a flaw – apparently, she “can’t sing that well”.
Barbie was so big – taking $1.45billion at the box office – that it is easy to forget that, at one point, taking on a film about the iconic but divisive toy was seen as a poisoned chalice.
The idea of making a film about the doll had been tossed around for more than a decade.
Margot secured the rights in 2018 after chasing them for years, but then came the real work.
When she approached Oscar-winning director Greta to take the project on with her husband and Barbie co-writer Noah Baumbach, it was clear that it would either be a huge success or a colossal failure.
“It felt like vertigo starting to write it,” Greta has said. “Like, where do you even begin?
“But when you are thinking: ‘This could be a career-ender,’ then you know you should probably do it.”
Margot and Greta became a team, cajoling executives of Mattel – who hold the Barbie intellectual rights – that the film needed to include the Barbie controversies, as well as being beautiful and funny.
That the Mattel bosses are the de facto baddies of the film shows just how persuasive the pair are (though those bosses laughed all the way to the bank after sales of the toy doll were boosted by 16% after the film’s release).
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In just 18 months Margot went from appearing in Neighbours to starring in Martin Scorsese’s blockbuster The Wolf Of Wall Street
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Margot as Donna Freedman in Neighbours
An Oscar could have been the cherry on top, but in reality, Margot has already scaled heights she never imagined as the third of four children being brought up by a single mum on Australia’s Gold Coast.
As she said in an interview last month: “There’s no way to feel sad when you know you’re this blessed.”
Pointing to the film’s eight Oscar nods, which include Best Picture, she added: “We set out to do something that would shift culture, affect culture, just make some sort of impact.
“And it’s already done that and some – way more than we ever dreamed it would. I can’t think of a time when a movie’s had this effect on culture. And it’s amazing to be in the eye of the storm.”
Describing that storm, stylist Jessica Andrews says: “This is a film that went beyond ‘pink fever’, it affected industries and the worlds of fashion and food.
“It takes a special film to really evoke the imagination and make a political point, as this one did.
“It brought women’s issues – the things women talk about but normally only to each other – to the forefront and attracted a strong male following even as it did that.”
That’s quite a leap for a girl whose first sign of business acumen was stealing her brother’s toys and selling them.
Margot Elise Robbie was born in Dalby, Queensland, 550 miles north of Sydney on July 2, 1990.
Her mother Sarie Kessler is a physiotherapist who raised the family when her father Doug Robbie, a sugarcane entrepreneur, left.
Her relationship with her father is one thing she rarely talks about – saying only, in 2016, that their contact was limited and: “I’m not like him at all.”
She had a huge drive to succeed from the off.
She first tried drama at school and then started calling agents herself, soon bagging a television debut on Aussie drama series City Homicide, followed by kids’ show The Elephant Princess.
After that, she turned her attention to getting a job on Neighbours and admits she repeatedly cold-called the soap’s casting office, until one day she was suddenly put through.
“I don’t know why, I think it was a mistake,” she later recalled.
“They asked: ‘How old are you?’ and I said: ‘I’m 17.’
“She said: ‘Oh, we need a 17-year-old girl right now, so come in next week.’”
Initially, she was meant to feature in just a few episodes, but ended up staying for three years.
Next, of course, was the move to Hollywood.
While she might have looked like one of dozens of beautiful blonde starlets, she was always determined to work harder and better.
Even today, she has an acting coach, plus a movement coach who helps her think about which spirit animal each of her characters inhabit.
She quickly picked up a role in 2011 TV show Pan Am, about ’60s air stewards, and was then invited to audition for a project that was to change her life – playing Leonardo DiCaprio’s wife in 2013 hit The Wolf Of Wall Street. But at first, she wasn’t keen.
“I saw the character as a sex object,” she later said.
“I had no interest in playing a woman like that.”
“The idea of relationships made me want to vomit
Margot Robbie
Her agents patiently explained that roles in Martin Scorsese films alongside DiCaprio didn’t come along that often.
Pan Am – which she was contracted to star in – proved to be another hurdle.
While lawyers argued over whether she could audition, she flew to London to visit friends and celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee with a few drinks.
After what she later described as “the best night ever”, she arrived back in her hotel room at 8am to find dozens of messages from her agent – Pan Am had been cancelled and she needed to catch the next flight to New York to audition for Scorsese and Wolf Of Wall Street.
Having had four hours’ sleep in 48 hours, she didn’t think the audition had got off to a good start.
But then she decided to ad-lib – and slapped Leo in the face. It could have gone really badly.
Instead, in unison, Scorsese and DiCaprio asked her to do it again.
A star was born, as the film went on to huge success and everyone wanted to know who this captivating new actress was.
While that slap may have been the making of her career in front of the camera, it was a stint in London that was to prove just as – if not more – important.
Her next project was 2014’s WW2 epic Suite Française.
She made such good friends with the crew on set that a group of them decided to rent a place together in Clapham, south London.
In the end, they agreed on a location that the lowest-paid of them could afford.
The four-bedroom flat, nicknamed The Manor, was the closest Margot had had to a home since she left her family to work on Neighbours.
There were drunken nights at local sticky-floored nightclub Infernos, summer picnics on Clapham Common and Love Island on television.
She described those days as “the best of my life”.
She was also falling in love.
Among her housemates was husband-to-be Tom, the assistant director on Suite Française.
They were friends before they were lovers.
She was to later tell Vogue: “I was the ultimate single gal.
“The idea of relationships made me want to vomit. And then this crept up on me.
“We were friends for so long.
Margot has an incredible combination of old-school movie-star magic with a modern take on how to appeal to a younger demographic
Leo Pearlman
“I was always in love with him, but I thought: ‘Oh, he would never love me back. Don’t make it weird, Margot. Don’t be stupid and tell him that you like him.’
“And then it happened and I was like: ‘Of course we’re together. This makes so much sense, the way nothing has ever made sense before.’”
It was at this point that Margot – still only 24 – helped set up a production company with Tom (who she married in 2016) and their two flatmates, Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr – called LuckyChap Entertainment.
Their first film was I, Tonya, starring Margot as disgraced US ice skater Tonya Harding.
From the very beginning, the squadron of producers showed they wanted to tell interesting female-led stories in a subversive way.
“While Margot may be first thought of as the eponymous star of this year’s biggest commercial box-office success, her real success has been in building a truly unique, commercial yet creatively independent, female, narrative-driven production company,” says fellow producer Leo Pearlman.
“What may have started out as a vehicle for her own projects has quickly established itself as one of the hottest producers in Hollywood,” he says.
As of 2023, LuckyChap Entertainment can count 16 Academy Award nominations, as well as 11 BAFTA noms.
And if producing two of the biggest films of the last year – Saltburn and Barbie – wasn’t enough, the company’s TV output has been no less impressive, with Hulu’s Dollface proving to be hugely successful.
Leo Pearlman adds: “Margot has an incredible combination of old-school movie-star magic with a modern take on how to appeal to a younger demographic, and right now that seems to be an unstoppable combination.”
Unstoppable indeed.
The production company is currently working on an Ocean’s 11 prequel and has a host of other projects for both film and television up its sleeve.
Margot is enjoying a break from acting and says she is hoping to direct next.
Well, if history is anything to go by, that too will turn to gold.
Her home now – a cool £4million Los Angeles pad – may feel a long way away from her small flatshare in Clapham, but she is a girl who knows not only where she wants to go, but also where she’s come from.
