Margot Robbie opens up about love, art and cinema

If she was not an actress, Margot Robbie would have become a stuntwoman or a trapeze artist. And from what we can say about her career, she can turn the tables around quite fast. Besides her glamorous appearance in Barbie – the fictional creature she embodied on the big screen in 2023, a movie signed Greta Gerwig – the 35 year-old Australian could have been held back to superficial, bombshells or romantic interests roles.

We are well-aware of Hollywood’s tendency to hold back women in main roles — especially beautiful ones. Marilyn Monroe faced years of being restrained to the archetype of the feeble-minded blonde before finding interesting roles.

The sensational rise of Margot Robbie

Despite common misogynistic beliefs, Margot Robbie has way more to give than her physical appearance. And she won’t let herself be restrained to a cliché. Born in Dalby, Queensland, Australia, she didn’t grew up around people from the industry. As a child, the Australian actress was raised by a single mother, a physiotherapist and lived with her two brothers and sister.

She became more assertive – or rebellious – during her teenage years, cumulating hours of detention and spending most of time at her grand-parent’s ranch. At 15 years old, something clicked. She watched a girl on the TV screen, same age as her, playing a “mediocre performance” according to the future actress. This judgmental assessment led Margot Robbie onto the path of acting, aspiring to become a wealthy, talented actress.

The common thread between Margot Robbie and Kylie Minogue

Yet, it would take her many eclectic experiences before she became one of the most profitable stars in the City of Angels. After graduating from high school in the coastal city Gold Coast known for its long sandy beaches and idyllic surfing spots – a sport that the actress loves as much as ice hockey and Pilates – Margot Robbie began studying law, but quickly dropped out of college.

This was followed by a series of odd jobs, which proved that the future artist was not afraid to roll up her sleeves. The Australian used to work in a surf shop, in a grocery shop, in a pharmacy, at Subway, as a babysitter and as a cleaning lady.

At the age of 17, the music metal and True Romance fan finally decided to take a step towards the career of her dreams and moved to Melbourne to have a better chance at castings. Helped by her spectacular features, Margot Robbie landed several roles in 2008, both in films and in shows, such as the soap opera Neighbours, the show that marked Kylie Minogue’s debut.

She owes much of this Hollywood foray to her guts. The aspiring actress had written to the soap’s producers asking them to hire her. An attitude that would become her trademark – later, she would write to Quentin Tarantino… Her philosophy? If she wants something, she does everything she can to get it as quickly as possible. Because Margot Robbie hates to wait…

An memorable slap given to Leonardo DiCaprio

However, it wasn’t until 2013 that things truly turned around for Margot Robbie. Still relatively unknown in the industry at that time, her career shifted under Martin Scorsese‘s direction of Wolf of Wall Street (2013). She played the alluring spouse of a wealthy broker, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. The movie drew three millions moviegoers in France. Beneath the dazzling, dirty pink wardrobe, the role revealed the character’s manipulative and calculative’s side.

To land this coveted role, Margot Robbie took a huge risk. She slapped Leonardo DiCaprio during the audition process, thus making an impression on both the actor and the director thanks to her boldness. Scorsese described her as a blend of three great actresses – Ida Lupino for her “emotional audacity”, Carole Lombard for her comic talent, and Joan Crawford for her tenacity.

That convincing performance became her free pass to the most sought-after roles. Margot Robbie has made one appearance after another, always sharing her magnetic, intense, fiery aura, filled with fury, humour, and madness. She is 100% committed to her roles and often returns home shaking, having trouble sleeping after her performances.

From I, Tonya to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Margot Robbie plays with the same intensity a glamorous con artist in Diversion (2015), alongside Will Smith, the dangerous, zany, punk, Harlequin-suited anti-heroine Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad (2016), and the deranged figure skater Tonya Harding in the dark comedy I, Tonya (2017).

This last tortured and grandiose performance remains the best of her career so far and earned her her first Best Actress Oscar nomination. As a Fight Club (1999) and action movies fan, Margot Robbie feels drawn to provocative films and to roles of strong women, such as Queen Elizabeth I in Mary Queen of Scots (2018), the ill-fated actress Sharon Tate in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), or the vengeful journalist in the thriller Bombshell (2019), alongside Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman. Every time she appears on the big screen, the same feeling arises.

Margot Robbie impresses audiences with her accuracy, elegance, and commitment in every shot. She can be sensual, dark, and hilarious, in one single scene. Her ultimate strength? Her mysterious blue eyes, coupled with her ability to “get ugly” for a role, and to be willing to play the villain or the psychopath, thus breaking the image of the Australian surfer with the ultra-bright smile that could have stuck to her skin.

“I started making a lot of art. Making art at home during lockdown soon started to feel weird.” – Margot Robbie

in October 2022, the actress revealed another side of herself. In the movie Amsterdam (2022), directed by David O. Russell (American Bluff, Happiness Therapy), starring Christian Bale, Rami Malek, and Robert De Niro, she plays a whimsical brunette nurse named Valerie, who makes a friendship pact with two veterans during the First World War – her lover, who is a lawyer, and a doctor. The three of them live the best years of their life in Amsterdam before a fascist rise threatens the US government. Valerie is a dreamy, funny young woman, who makes artistic objects with the metal of the bullets she collected from the bodies of the soldiers she treats.

She also likes to take photos of her surroundings to create original pictures. “I had a lot of time to prep for the role of Valerie. Longer than I have ever had for any other role. Not only because David, the director, was so collaborative that he wanted to talk about Valerie and about the film years before we did it, but also because we had to stop everything at one point because of Covid. Perhaps, the preparation time was a bit too long, to be honest. I started doing a lot of art at home during lockdown. It was getting weird at some point.”

Amsterdam: A larger-than-life story of love and friendship

Known for throwing herself into her roles, Margot Robbie was taken in by Valerie’s creative and “crazy” personality right from the start, as the actress puts it. She explains: “I fell in love with Valerie. She follows her own rhythm. At one point, my husband came into the room I was in, and there were pieces of metal and fake blood everywhere. I had my Super 8 camera out, I was wearing a mask, and I had all this crazy stuff like X-rays around me. (Laughs) He then told me: ‘I think you’re pushing this character a little too far. You need to calm down.’ And I simply replied: ‘Okay.’”

Part of the reason why the actress didn’t have any trouble doing a brilliant portray of her character was that, strangely enough, she had been through a similar journey herself. “The pact of friendship Valerie makes with Harold and Burt means everything to her. And it happens that I was also part of a very similar symbiotic trio to the one in the film. Ironically, we all met in Europe too, in Belgium to be exact. That’s where I met my two best friends. I have married one of them, while I’m working with the other one. I let parts of myself infuse this film and I think that this authenticity shows on screen.”

Babylon and Barbie… Two major projects for Margot Robbie in 2023

As a matter of fact, Margot Robbie met assistant directors Tom Ackerley (now her husband and father of her child) and Josey McNamara (now her friend) in 2014 on the set of the French- British-Belgian film Suite Française (2015). The three founded a British production company LuckyCharp Entertainments, as Margot Robbie lives between London and Los Angeles. This production company aims to bring great women’s stories to the screen and support women creators behind the scenes. Suite Française featured actor Matthias Schoenaerts, who also stars in Amsterdam. Proof that happy coincidences and magic are never far away when Margot Robbie is part of a project.

However, it may only be the beginning of the actress’ consecration, who admits being constantly afraid that the peak of her career might be behind her. Today, the Australian star is the highest paid actress in Hollywood. In 2023, she starred in Damien Chazelle’s anticipated feature Babylon (2023), alongside Brad Pitt. She apparently insisted to kiss him in one specific scene, even though it wasn’t part of the script. She also appeared next to Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, and Scarlett Johansson in Wes Anderson’s upcoming film Asteroid City (2023).

But above all, she shone as the iconic Mattel doll in Barbie , directed by Greta Gerwig and co-starring Ryan Gosling. The film that made waves upon its theatrical release in July 2023. Co-produced by Margot Robbie’s company, LuckyChap Entertainment, the movie explores the ultra-pink universe of the gendered toy with a feminist, offbeat, and critical twist.

The star of the rom-com A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

And that’s not all… After taking a break in 2024 to welcome her first child, the star is back in full swing with multiple projects. She’s set to produce films based on The Sims and the board game Monopoly. The new face of Chanel No. 5 also stars in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, alongside Colin Farrell. Released on October 1st, 2025, this dreamy, original rom-com tells the story of two single people reliving key moments from their respective lives.

The actress will soon appear in the highly-anticipated Wuthering Heights, a bold and intensely sensual adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel, co-starring Jacob Elordi. It is a simple overview of the thrilling projects which will propel the fearless Margot Robbie ever further along the path to stardom and among the most powerful women in Hollywood.

Amsterdam (2022) by David O. Russell, available on Netflix. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025) by Kogonada, currently in theaters.