Margot Elise Robbie, an Australian actress and producer, was born on July 2, 1990. Recognized for her contributions to indie and mainstream cinema, she has won several awards and been nominated for three Academy Awards, six BAFTA Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. In 2017, Time listed her as one of the 100 most powerful people on the planet, and in 2019, Forbes listed her as one of the highest-paid actors globally.
Quick Facts
- Birth Name: Margot Elise Robbie
- Birth Date: July 2, 1990
- Birth Place: Queensland, Australia
- Gender: Female
- Career: Actress, Producer
- Most Known For: With her leading performances as Jane Porter in The Legend of Tarzan (2016) and Harley Quinn in the DC Extended Universe films, starting with Suicide Squad (2016), she gained more fame. She also starred in the Barbie movie, which went on to become the highest earning movie of the year.
Margot Robbie’s Biography: Early Life
On July 2, 1990, in Dalby, Queensland, Margot Elise Robbie was born into the family of physiotherapist Sarie Kessler and former farm owner and sugarcane entrepreneur Doug Robbie. Of the four siblings—the younger brother Cameron, the elder siblings Anya and Lachlan—she is the second youngest.
She was five years old when her parents divorced. Robbie’s father was not much in contact with her and her siblings as they were raised by their single mother. Robbie was raised mostly on her grandparents’ farm in the hinterland of the Gold Coast, in the Currumbin Valley. Robbie was an active child who frequently performed in her home.
Her mother put her in a circus school, where she excelled in trapeze and graduated at age eight with a certificate. Robbie attended Somerset College to study acting in high school. She performed three jobs at once as a teenager: she was a bartender, a housecleaner, and a Subway employee. Having appeared in a few indie thriller films and commercials, Robbie moved to Melbourne to pursue a career in acting after graduating.
Early Career in ‘The Elephant Princess’
In high school, Robbie landed her first acting gigs. Years later, she starred in two independent low-budget thriller movies, Vigilante and I.C.U. Becoming on a movie set was, in her words, “a dream come true”. Her first appearance on television was as a guest character in the drama series City Homicide in 2008 as Caitlin Brentford. She then featured opposite Liam Hemsworth in a two-episode storyline in the children’s show The Elephant Princess.
Australian viewers were familiar with her from the TV serial series Neighbours, which aired five years before to her birth, before she departed for Hollywood. She took a vacation in Canada because of fear that her audition might go poorly, but she had to return soon after learning that she had been cast as the lively Donna Freedman in 2008.
Despite the controversy surrounding her kiss with a female companion, Donna continued to be a favourite of the public and received several award nominations. After leaving Neighbours in 2010 (with a “boring old happy ending”), she went on to star in Pan Am (2011), her first American TV series, although it failed after just one season.
Finding Fame in Hollywood with ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’
Robbie then starred alongside Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson in Richard Curtis’ romantic comedy About Time (2013). It narrates the tale of a young guy who possesses the capacity to travel across time and strives to alter the past in an effort to better the future. She got a British accent to play Gleeson’s unreachable adolescent love interest. The movie had some degree of commercial success.
In Martin Scorsese’s biographical black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street, Robbie had her breakout performance as protagonist Jordan Belfort’s wife, Naomi Lapaglia, in the same year. Robbie faked a slap on co-star Leonardo DiCaprio during a fight scene during her audition, and it worked, landing her the job.
Positive reviews were given to the movie and her performance; her on-screen Brooklyn accent garnered special attention. With a $392 million global box office haul, The Wolf of Wall Street became Scorsese’s highest-grossing movie to date. Robbie received the Empire Award for Best Newcomer and was a nominee for the MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance.
In 2015, Robbie gained recognition for her modest but noteworthy part as herself in The Big Short. She was swimming in a tub of bubbles, champagne in hand, explaining mortgage-backed securities and subprime loans in this humorous scene. Her first main parts came that year as well. Robbie played a con artist who steals the hearts of his co-star Will Smith in the movie Focus. She had a nomination for the 68th British Academy Film Awards’ Rising Star Award.
In addition, she starred in Zachariah, a science fiction drama. The movie centres on Ann Burden (Robbie), who becomes entangled in a passionate romantic triangle with the final known survivors of a catastrophic event that wipes out much of civilization. It is partially based on Robert C. O’Brien’s book of the same name. Robbie acquired an Appalachian accent and coloured her hair dark in order to be ready for the movie.
Worldwide Recognition as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad
Robbie portrayed Jane Porter in David Yates’s adventure picture The Legend of Tarzan later that year. She insisted on maintaining her current weight and made sure the character wasn’t a damsel in distress as in other Tarzan adaptations. The majority of the reviews for the movie were negative.
Joining Will Smith, Jared Leto, and Viola Davis in the ensemble cast of David Ayer’s 2016 superhero picture Suicide Squad, Robbie became the first person to play DC Comics villain Harley Quinn in a live-action role. Although she acknowledged that she had never read the comics, she felt a great sense of obligation to honour the character and win over the audience.
Robbie had intended to return to her well-liked role as Harley Quinn in Gotham City Sirens; however, the project was cancelled in favour of Birds of Prey, another spin-off that starred Ewan McGregor and debuted in theatres in February 2020. In 2021, Robbie reprised her role as Harley Quinn in The Suicide Squad.
In Simon Curtis’ 2017 historical drama Goodbye Christopher Robin, which is based on the life of Winnie-the-Pooh creator A. A. Milne and his family, Robbie worked alongside Domhnall Gleeson.
Craig Gillespie’s sports black comedy I, Tonya, which is inspired on the biography of American figure skater Tonya Harding (Robbie) and her involvement to the 1994 attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan, was her last release of 2017 and the first movie from LuckyChap Entertainment. She was nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Actress, among other honours, for her portrayal.
2018 – Recent Years
In Will Gluck’s computer-animated comedy Peter Rabbit, which is based on the Beatrix Potter book series, Robbie voiced Flopsy Rabbit to start 2018. Despite a $50 million production expense, the animated picture was a box office hit, earning $351.3 million worldwide. The comedy-horror Slaughterhouse Rulez and the neo-noir thriller Terminal, her following two 2018 releases, were critical and box office disasters. Josie Rourke’s historical drama Mary Queen of Scots was her last release of the year 2018.
Subsequently, Robbie secured a prominent role in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, costarring with Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as actress Sharon Tate, a genuine victim of the infamous Charles Manson-initiated killings of 1969.
Robbie had a much bigger part at the end of 2019 in Bombshell, which recounted the sexual harassment claims that shocked Fox News while it was run by former CEO Roger Ailes. While Nicole Kidman’s Gretchen Carlson and Charlize Theron’s Megyn Kelly were real people, Robbie’s Kayla Pospisil was a fictional composite. However, Robbie’s nuanced performance brought her “Christian millennial” character to life, earning her nominations for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards.
Robbie’s star power hasn’t diminished in recent years. The actress went on to 2022’s Amsterdam after playing Harley Quinn again in Birds of Prey (2020) and The Suicide Squad (2021). Robbie portrays Valerie Voze, a nurse who tends to two wounded soldiers in the historical drama, performed by Christian Bale and John David Washington. The action takes place during World War I. The movie is based on a conspiracy theory that aims to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install a tyrant in his stead.
Babylon was released the same year, a film in which Robbie’s Nellie LaRoy and other characters attempt to fulfill their aspirations of becoming Hollywood stars in the 1920s. Nellie finds it difficult to adjust to the quickly changing film business and gives in to vices like drug abuse and gambling, endangering her profession and reputation as an it girl. Robbie received a second nomination for Best Actress and her third Golden Globe for the performance.
Wes Anderson’s 2023 Asteroid City, which presents a meta-story-within-a-story scenario set in a 1950s desert hamlet, also had Robbie among its star-studded ensemble. Maya Hawke, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, and Tom Hanks were among the other cast members.
Her next movie release was the fantasy comedy Barbie, which costarred Ryan Gosling as Ken. In 2018, Robbie purchased the film’s rights from Mattel as producer, based on the fashion doll of the same name. After Gal Gadot turned down her offer, she cast herself in the lead role and engaged Greta Gerwig to write and direct the movie.
According to Variety, Robbie received the biggest salary of any Hollywood actress that year—$12.5 million—for the role. In addition to being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, she was also given further nods for BAFTA and Golden Globes for her performance.
Robbie produced Saltburn, Fennell’s second feature film, in 2023 as well. Megan Park’s comedic flick My Old Ass, her next project, debuted at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
Personal Life
Even with all of the media attention, Robbie seldom ever talks about her personal life. Early in the 2010s, Robbie relocated from Melbourne to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She developed a strong passion for ice hockey at that time; she used to play right wing in an amateur league and is a fan of the New York Rangers.
In 2013, Robbie got to know Tom Ackerley, a British assistant director, while working on Suite Française. Along with Ackerley and the co-founders of LuckyChap Entertainment, Sophia Kerr and Josey McNamara, she relocated to London in 2014. Robbie and Ackerley started dating later on in the year. They live in Venice Beach, California, and were married in Australia in December 2016. They are childless.
In 2023, Robbie’s wealth increased dramatically as a result of his lead part in Barbie. Variety claims that Robbie received a $12.5 million payment for the part, increasing her estimated net worth to $40 million.
