Margot Robbie Biography – an Australian actress and the “Barbie” of Hollywood

Margot Elise Robbie (born 2 July 1990) is an Australian actress and producer. Known for her work in both blockbusters and independent films, she has received various accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and five British Academy Film Awards. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2017, and she was ranked as one of the world’s highest-paid actresses by Forbes in 2019.

Born and raised in Queensland, Robbie began her career in 2008 on the television series Neighbours, on which she was a regular until 2011. After moving to America, she led the television series Pan Am (2011–2012) and had her breakthrough in 2013 with the black comedy film The Wolf of Wall Street. She achieved wider recognition with starring roles as Jane Porter in The Legend of Tarzan (2016) and Harley Quinn in the DC Extended Universe films, beginning with Suicide Squad (2016).

Robbie received critical acclaim and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of figure skater Tonya Harding in the biopic I, Tonya (2017). This acclaim continued for her performances as Queen Elizabeth I in Mary Queen of Scots (2018), Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), and a Fox News employee in Bombshell (2019). She received BAFTA Award nominations for all three and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the last. Robbie has since starred as an aspiring actress in the period film Babylon (2022) and the titular fashion doll in the fantasy comedy Barbie (2023).

Robbie & her husband, filmmaker Tom Ackerley, co-founded the production company LuckyChap Entertainment in 2014, under which they have produced several films, including I, Tonya, Promising Young Woman (2020), and Barbie, as well as the Hulu series Dollface (2019–2022) and the Netflix miniseries Maid (2021).

Early life and education (Margot Robbie Biography)

Margot Elise Robbie was born on 2 July 1990 in Dalby, Queensland, to Doug Robbie, a former farm owner, and sugarcane tycoon, and Sarie Kessler, a physiotherapist. She is the second youngest of four; older siblings Anya and Lachlan and younger brother Cameron. Her parents separated when she was five. Robbie and her siblings were raised by their single mother and had minimal contact with their father. The family spent the majority of Robbie’s upbringing on her grandparents’ Currumbin Valley farm in the Gold Coast hinterland. An energetic child, Robbie often put on shows in her house.

She was enrolled in a circus school by her mother, where she excelled in trapeze, for which she received a certificate at age eight. In high school, Robbie studied drama at Somerset College. As a teenager, she worked three jobs simultaneously: she tended a bar, cleaned houses, and worked at Subway. After graduation, with a few commercials and independent thriller films on her résumé, Robbie relocated to Melbourne to begin acting professionally.

Career (Margot Robbie Biography)

2008–2012: Early work and Neighbours

Robbie’s first acting role came when she was in high school. She starred in two low-budget independent thriller films, called Vigilante and I.C.U., both released years later. She described the experience of being on a film set as “a dream come true”. She made her television debut in a 2008 guest role as Caitlin Brentford in the drama series City Homicide and followed this with a two-episode arc in the children’s television series The Elephant Princess, in which she starred alongside Liam Hemsworth.

With agent encouragement at the time and as Robbie recalled on The Graham Norton Show, she called FremantleMedia on a daily basis. “One day, I got put through by accident to the casting director for Neighbours,” and she said, “I’m in town working on something.” The casting director asked how old she was, and she responded “Seventeen.” She was told, “We’re looking for exactly that, come in and audition” for the television soap opera Neighbours. In June 2008, she began playing Donna Freedman, a role that was meant to be a guest character, but Robbie was promoted to the regular cast after she made her debut. In her three-year stint on the soap, she received two Logie Award nominations.

Shortly after arriving in America, Robbie landed the role of Laura Cameron, a newly trained flight attendant in the period drama series Pan Am (2011). The series premiered to high ratings and positive reviews but was canceled after one season due to falling ratings.

2013–2015: Breakthrough (Margot Robbie Biography)

Robbie made her feature film debut in Richard Curtis’ romantic comedy About Time (2013), co-starring Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams. It tells the story of a young man with the ability to time travel who tries to change his past in hopes of improving his future. To play Gleeson’s unattainable teenage love interest, she adopted a British accent. The film was a modest commercial success. Robbie’s breakthrough came the same year with the role of Naomi Lapaglia, the wife of protagonist Jordan Belfort, in Martin Scorsese’s biographical black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street. Co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort, the film recounts his perspective on his career as a stockbroker in New York City and how his firm engaged in rampant corruption and fraud on Wall Street, which led to his downfall. In her audition for the role, Robbie improvised a slap on DiCaprio during a fight scene which ultimately won her the part. The film and her performance received positive reviews; she was particularly praised for her on-screen Brooklyn accent. Critic Sasha Stone wrote of Robbie’s performance, “She’s Scorsese’s best blonde bombshell discovery since Cathy Moriarty in Raging Bull. Robbie is funny, hard, and kills every scene she’s in.” The Wolf of Wall Street was a box office success, grossing $392 million worldwide, making it Scorsese’s highest-grossing film to date. Robbie was nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and won the Empire Award for Best Newcomer.

She followed this with Craig Zobel’s post-apocalyptic drama Z for Zachariah opposite Chris Pine and Chiwetel Ejiofor, in her first leading role. Partially based on Robert C. O’Brien’s book of the same name, the film follows Ann Burden (Robbie) as she finds herself in an emotionally charged love triangle with the last known survivors of a disaster that wipes out most of civilization. In preparation for the film, Robbie dyed her hair brown and learned to speak in an Appalachian accent. The film received positive reviews, and Robbie’s performance was widely praised, with Drew McWeeny of HitFix asserting that “Robbie’s work here establishes her as one of the very best actresses in her age range today.” Her fourth release of 2015 was a cameo appearance in Adam McKay’s comedy-drama The Big Short, in which she breaks the fourth wall to explain subprime mortgages while in a bathtub. The Big Short was a commercial and critical success and Robbie’s cameo became a trending topic six years later, in the wake of the GameStop short squeeze, as her explanation provided reference points for what was happening with the GameStop and related stocks.

2016–2018: Worldwide recognition (Margot Robbie Biography)

In 2016, Robbie reunited with Ficarra and Requa, playing a British war correspondent in the film adaptation of The Taliban Shuffle, called Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, co-starring Tina Fey and Martin Freeman. Later that year, Robbie took on the part of Jane Porter in David Yates’s adventure film The Legend of Tarzan. She was adamant about not losing weight and ensuring the role was not a damsel in distress like in previous Tarzan adaptations. Reviews of the film were generally unfavorable, but Manohla Dargis of The New York Times credited Robbie for “holding her own” in her supporting role alongside the all-male cast with Alexander Skarsgård and Samuel L. Jackson.

Her final release of 2017 and LuckyChap Entertainment’s first release was Craig Gillespie’s sports black comedy I, Tonya, based on the life of American figure skater Tonya Harding (Robbie) and her connection to the 1994 assault on rival Nancy Kerrigan. In preparation, Robbie met with Harding, watched old footage and interviews of her, worked with a voice coach to speak in Harding’s Pacific Northwest accent and vocal timbre at different ages, and underwent several months of rigorous skating instruction with choreographer Sarah Kawahara. I Tonya premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival to critical acclaim. James Luxford of Metro deemed it Robbie’s best performance to date, and Mark Kermode of The Observer wrote, “Margot Robbie’s performance in this satirical, postmodern tale of the disgraced star is a tour-de-force tornado that balances finely nuanced character development with impressively punchy physicality”. She received numerous accolades for her performance, including nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Critics’ Choice Movie Award, all for Best Actress.

Robbie began 2018 with the voice role of Flopsy Rabbit in Peter Rabbit, a computer-animated comedy by director Will Gluck, which is based on the Beatrix Potter book series. The animated feature was a box office success, grossing $351.3 million worldwide against a production budget of $50 million. Her next two 2018 films—the neo-noir thriller Terminal and comedy-horror Slaughterhouse Rulez—were critical and commercial failures. The historical drama Mary Queen of Scots, directed by Josie Rourke, was her final release of 2018. The film featured Saoirse Ronan as the titular character and Robbie as her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, and it chronicles the 1569 conflict between their two countries. Robbie had initially turned down the role for being “terrified” of not living up to the history of portrayals of the Queen. Before each day of shooting, she spent three hours in the make-up chair while a prosthetic nose, painted on boils and blisters was applied. Critics dismissed the film for its screenplay and several historical inaccuracies but praised the performances of Robbie and Ronan. Yolanda Machado of The Wrap wrote, “[B]ow down to Ronan and Robbie for taking two legendarily complex characters, […] and completely owning both roles. Ronan’s fiery Mary and Robbie’s emotionally complex Elizabeth truly reign divine on screen.” For her portrayal, Robbie received nominations for a BAFTA Award and for a Screen Actors Guild Award.

2019–present: Established actress and producer (Margot Robbie Biography)

Robbie’s first release of 2019 was the LuckyChap Entertainment production Dreamland, a poorly received period crime thriller set during the 1930s Dust Bowl. She began executive producing the comedy series Dollface, which streamed on Hulu from 2019 to 2022. Robbie was filmmaker Quentin Tarantino’s only choice to portray the late actress Sharon Tate in his period film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. With the Tate-LaBianca Murders serving as a backdrop, the film tells the story of a fading character actor (DiCaprio) and his stunt double (Pitt) as they navigate New Hollywood in 1969 Los Angeles. Feeling “an enormous sense of responsibility”, Robbie prepared for the role by meeting Tate’s family members and friends, watching all of her films, and reading the autobiography by Tate’s then-husband, Roman Polanski. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim, and was a commercial success with a worldwide gross of $374.3 million. Despite many bemoaning Robbie’s lack of lines in the film, Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph highlighted a scene with Robbie in the cinema, which he found to be the film’s “most delightful” scene.

In 2022, Robbie reprised her role as Donna Freedman for the final episode of Neighbours. She starred alongside an ensemble cast in David O. Russell’s period comedy Amsterdam, based on the 1933 Business Plot. The film emerged as a critical and commercial failure. In her second film release of the year, she played Nellie LaRoy, an actress inspired by silent movie star Clara Bow, in Damien Chazelle’s comedy-drama Babylon. In preparation, she studied the works of Bow and researched her traumatic childhood. She described LaRoy as “the most physically and emotionally draining character I’ve ever played”. The film polarized critics and had poor box office returns, though her performance received praise; Caryn James of BBC Culture opined, “Robbie’s bold, charismatic performance makes Nellie a daring, endlessly spiraling, sympathetic figure”. She received another Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.

In the following year, Robbie had a single scene in Wes Anderson’s ensemble comedy film Asteroid City. Chris Hewitt of the Star Tribune described her “impassioned acting in her lone scene” as “perfectly judged”. The fantasy comedy Barbie, co-starring Ryan Gosling as Ken, was her next film release. As a producer, Robbie bought the rights from Mattel for a film about the eponymous fashion doll in 2018. She hired Greta Gerwig to write and direct the film and took on the title role herself after Gal Gadot declined her offer. In preparation, Gerwig and Robbie watched old Technicolor musicals such as The Red Shoes (1948) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Variety reported that Robbie earned $12.5 million for the role, the highest for an actress in Hollywood that year. Vulture‘s Alison Willmore took note of how much Robbie fit the part and commended her for combining both “heartbreaking earnestness” and “humor” in her performance.

Robbie will next star in and produce a prequel to the Ocean film series, once again opposite Gosling.

Personal life (Margot Robbie Biography)

Robbie moved from Melbourne to Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the early 2010s. During that period, she became an avid ice hockey fan, supporting the New York Rangers, and playing right wing in an amateur ice hockey league. Despite significant media attention, Robbie rarely discusses her personal life.

Robbie met British assistant director Tom Ackerley on the set of Suite Française in 2013. In 2014, she moved to London with Ackerley and LuckyChap Entertainment co-founders Sophia Kerr and Josey McNamara. Later that year, Robbie and Ackerley began a romantic relationship. They married in December 2016 in Australia and reside in Venice Beach, California.

Other work (Margot Robbie Biography)

Robbie has been a vocal supporter of human rights, women’s rights, gender equality, and LGBT rights. Through LuckyChap Entertainment, she and her co-founders focus on promoting female stories from female storytellers, whether it would be writers, directors, producers, or all of the above. In 2014, she was part of a fundraising event in support of the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which helps people in the film and television industries with limited or no resources; she joined the same event on two other occasions, in 2018 and 2020. In 2015, she helped raise $12 million through the BGC Global Charity Day fundraising event, which donates money to different charities around the world. In 2016, Robbie joined other celebrities and UN Refugee Agency staff in a petition aiming to gather public support for the growing number of families forced to flee conflict and persecution worldwide. Later in the year, she joined Oxfam’s “I Hear You” project, which was designed to amplify the personal stories of the world’s most vulnerable refugees, and donated more than $50.000 to UNICEF‘s “Children First” campaign, in support of refugee children.

In October 2016, while hosting Saturday Night Live, Robbie made a stand for same-sex marriage in her native Australia wearing a T-shirt that read “Say ‘I Do’ Down Under”, with a map of the country in rainbow colors. A year later, she joined fellow actor Chris Hemsworth in advocating for the same purpose. In 2018, she pledged to support the Time’s Up initiative to protect women from harassment and discrimination. In April 2021, Robbie was announced as the recipient of the inaugural RAD Impact Award, for inspiring purpose with her philanthropy. She chose to share the prize with Youngcare, a charity she had previously worked with, and therefore an impact donation was made to fund a project benefiting young people with extensive care needs.

Public image (Margot Robbie Biography)

Robbie is known for starring in both high-profile, mainstream productions and low-budget independent films, in which she has been able to display both her dramatic and comedic range.

For her role in The Wolf of Wall Street, Vanity Fair named her one of its breakthrough actors of 2013. In 2017, she appeared on the annual Forbes 30 Under 30 list, a compilation of the brightest young entrepreneurs, innovators, and game changers in the world, and was included on a similar list compiled by The Hollywood Reporter. That same year, Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world; her The Wolf of Wall Street director Martin Scorsese penned the article in the magazine, referring to Robbie as having “a unique audacity that surprises and challenges and just burns like a brand into every character she plays. […] Margot is stunning in all she is and all she does, and she will astonish us forever.” In 2019, Forbes ranked her among the world’s highest-paid actresses, with annual earnings of $23.5 million, and The Hollywood Reporter listed her among the 100 most powerful people in entertainment. In 2021, she was named one of the 100 most influential women in entertainment by The Hollywood Reporter.

Vogue has named her “one of the most glamorous starlets” and she was ranked as one of the best-dressed women in 2018 and 2019 by luxury fashion retailer Net-a-Porter. In 2014 and 2016, she was featured on AskMen’s Top 99 Women, ranking among the top ten each year. Also in 2016, Robbie was placed at number one on FHM‘s “100 Sexiest Women in the World” list. Since 2016, she has been chosen as the ambassador for brands such as Calvin Klein, Nissan, and Chanel. She was the last brand ambassador picked by Karl Lagerfeld before his death in February 2019.

Filmography and awards (Margot Robbie Biography)

Film

Television (Margot Robbie Biography)

According to the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, Robbie’s most critically acclaimed films are About Time (2013), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Z for Zachariah (2015), Suite Française (2015), Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016), I, Tonya (2017), Mary Queen of Scots (2019), Bombshell (2019), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), Birds of Prey (2020), and The Suicide Squad (2021).

Robbie has received two Academy Award nominations: Best Actress for I, Tonya (2018), and Best Supporting Actress for Bombshell (2019). She has also been nominated for five British Academy Film Awards, four Golden Globes, and five Screen Actors Guild Awards. Robbie has won two AACTA Awards: Best International Lead Actress for I, Tonya, and Best International Supporting Actress for Bombshell (2019).

Awards and nominations (Margot Robbie Biography)

Source URL