Margot Elise Robbie

Margot Elise Robbie (born 2 July 1990) is an Australian actress and producer. Known for her roles in both blockbusters and independent films, she has received several accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and five British Academy Film Awards. Time magazine 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 on the television series Neighbours (2008–2011, 2022) and Pan Am (2011–2012). Her breakthrough came 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 superhero films Suicide Squad (2016), Birds of Prey (2020) and The Suicide Squad (2021).

Robbie received critical acclaim and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding in the biopic I, Tonya (2017). This acclaim continued with her roles as Queen Elizabeth I in the period drama Mary Queen of Scots (2018), Sharon Tate in the comedy-drama Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), and a fictional Fox News employee in the drama Bombshell (2019); she received BAFTA Award nominations for all three and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the lattermost.

Robbie is married to filmmaker Tom Ackerley. They are co-founders of the production company LuckyChap Entertainment, under which they have produced several films, including Promising Young Woman (2020), as well as the television series Dollface (2019–2022) and the miniseries Maid (2021).

Early life and education

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 lived on a farm belonging to her grandparents 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, in 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 only a few commercials and independent thriller films on her résumé, Robbie relocated to Melbourne to begin acting professionally.

2008–2015: Early work and breakthrough

Robbie's first acting roles came during high school, when 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 the encouragement from her agent at the time, Robbie auditioned 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 cancelled after one season due to falling ratings.

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 critical and commercial success, with a reviewer for Variety praising the cast, while also criticising the stock characters as being too familiar.

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. With the aim to produce more female-driven projects, Robbie and her future husband Tom Ackerley and their respective longtime friends, Sophia Kerr and Josey McNamara, started their own production company LuckyChap Entertainment. The company was founded in 2014 and its name was inspired by Charlie Chaplin.

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