Margot Robbie

1.1. Childhood and Family

Margot Elise Robbie was born on July 2, 1990, in Dalby, Queensland, Australia. Her mother, Sarie Kessler, worked as a physiotherapist, while her father, Doug Robbie, was a former farm-owner and sugarcane tycoon. She is the second youngest of four siblings, with older siblings Anya and Lachlan, and a younger brother, Cameron. Her parents separated when she was five years old, and Robbie and her siblings were primarily raised by their single mother, having minimal contact with their father. The family spent the majority of Robbie's upbringing on her grandparents' farm in Currumbin Valley, located in the Gold Coast hinterland.

As an energetic child, Robbie often entertained her family by putting on shows in their house. Her mother enrolled her in a circus school, where Robbie excelled in trapeze, earning a certificate in the discipline by the age of eight.

1.2. Education and Early Jobs

For her formal education, Robbie studied drama at Somerset College in Queensland, graduating in 2007. To support herself as a teenager, she worked three jobs simultaneously: tending a bar, cleaning houses, and working at a Subway restaurant. After graduating from college and having accumulated some experience from appearing in commercials and independent thriller films, Robbie relocated to Melbourne at the age of 17 to begin acting professionally.

2.1. Early Career in Australia (2007-2011)

Robbie's first acting roles came during her high school years. She starred in two low-budget independent thriller films, Vigilante (2008) and I.C.U. (2009), both of which were released years later. She described the experience of being on a film set as "a dream come true." She made her television debut in 2008 with a guest role as Caitlin Brentford in the drama series City Homicide, followed by a two-episode arc in the children's television series The Elephant Princess, where she starred alongside Liam Hemsworth.

With encouragement from her agent at the time, Robbie persistently called FremantleMedia daily. As she recalled on The Graham Norton Show, she was accidentally put through to the casting director for the television soap opera Neighbours. When asked her age, she responded "seventeen," which was exactly what they were looking for, leading to an audition. In June 2008, she began playing Donna Freedman, a role initially intended as a guest character. However, due to her performance, Robbie was quickly promoted to the regular cast after her debut. During her three-year tenure on Neighbours, she received two Logie Award nominations: for Most Popular New Female Talent in 2009 and Most Popular Actress in 2011. She was also nominated for Favorite Hottie at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. In September 2010, Robbie announced her departure from Neighbours to pursue an acting career in Hollywood, with her final scenes airing on January 26, 2011.

2.2. Move to the United States and Early Roles (2011-2012)

Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, Robbie auditioned for a new series of Charlie's Angels. However, producers at Sony Pictures Television instead offered her a role in the ABC period drama series Pan Am, starring alongside Christina Ricci. Robbie took on the role of Laura Cameron, a newly trained flight attendant. The series premiered to high ratings and positive reviews but was ultimately canceled after one season due to falling viewership.

2.3. Breakthrough and Rising Recognition (2013-2015)

Robbie's career saw a significant turning point in 2013. She first appeared in Richard Curtis' romantic comedy About Time, co-starring Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams. In the film, she played Gleeson's unattainable teenage love interest, for which she adopted a British accent. The film achieved modest commercial success, grossing 87.00 M USD against a budget of 12.00 M USD.

Her breakthrough came in the same year with her role as Naomi Lapaglia, the second wife of protagonist Jordan Belfort, in Martin Scorsese's biographical black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street. During her audition, Robbie famously improvised a slap on co-star Leonardo DiCaprio during a fight scene, a bold move that ultimately secured her the part. Both the film and her performance received positive reviews, with particular praise for her on-screen Brooklyn accent. Critic Sasha Stone lauded Robbie's performance, stating, "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 major box office success, grossing 392.00 M USD worldwide, making it Scorsese's highest-grossing film at the time. For her role, Robbie was nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and won the Empire Award for Best Newcomer.

The sudden fame and intense media attention that followed The Wolf of Wall Street led Robbie to consider quitting acting. However, her mother's philosophical advice encouraged her to persevere. With a new goal to produce more female-driven projects, Robbie, along with her future husband Tom Ackerley and their longtime friends Sophia Kerr and Josey McNamara, co-founded their production company, LuckyChap Entertainment, in 2014. The company's name was inspired by Charlie Chaplin.

In 2015, Robbie appeared in four films. The first was Focus, a romantic comedy-drama directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, where she starred opposite Will Smith. She played an inexperienced grifter learning from Smith's character and trained with Apollo Robbins to learn pickpocketing for the role. While reviews for the film were mixed, Robbie's performance was widely praised; Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote, "Robbie is wow and then some. Even when Focus fumbles, [she] deals a winning hand." The film grossed 158.80 M USD. Robbie was also nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award at the 68th British Academy Film Awards.

Her next appearance was in Saul Dibb's war romantic drama Suite Française, based on Irène Némirovsky's novel. She co-starred with Michelle Williams and Kristin Scott Thomas, playing a woman who falls for a German soldier during the German occupation of France during World War II. Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter found her role "underwritten."

She then took on her first leading role in Craig Zobel's post-apocalyptic drama Z for Zachariah, opposite Chris Pine and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Partially based on Robert C. O'Brien's book of the same name, the film follows Ann Burden (Robbie) as she navigates an emotionally charged love triangle with the last known survivors of a global disaster. To prepare, Robbie dyed her hair brown and learned an Appalachian accent. The film received positive reviews, and Robbie's performance garnered widespread praise, with Drew McWeeny of HitFix stating that her work "establishes her as one of the very best actresses in her age range today."

Robbie's fourth release of 2015 was a cameo appearance in Adam McKay's comedy-drama The Big Short. In her scene, she breaks the fourth wall to explain subprime mortgages while in a bathtub. The film was a commercial and critical success, and Robbie's cameo later became a trending topic during the GameStop short squeeze, as her explanation provided relevant context for the financial events.

2.4. Worldwide Recognition (2016-2018)

In 2016, Robbie reunited with Ficarra and Requa for Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, a film adaptation of The Taliban Shuffle, where she played a British war correspondent alongside 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 for the role and ensuring her character was not a damsel in distress, a common trope in previous Tarzan adaptations. While the film received generally unfavorable reviews, Manohla Dargis of The New York Times credited Robbie for "holding her own" in her supporting role alongside an all-male cast including Alexander Skarsgård and Samuel L. Jackson.

Robbie made history as the first actress to portray DC Comics villain Harley Quinn in live-action when she joined David Ayer's 2016 superhero film Suicide Squad. The ensemble cast included Will Smith, Jared Leto, and Viola Davis. Robbie admitted to never having read the comics but felt a significant responsibility to do justice to the character and satisfy her fans. She began preparing for the role six months before filming, undergoing a rigorous schedule that included gymnastics, boxing, aerial silk training, and learning to hold her breath underwater for five minutes. She performed the majority of her own stunts in the film. Suicide Squad was a commercial success, becoming the tenth-highest-grossing film of 2016 with global revenues of 746.80 M USD. Robbie's performance was widely considered its prime asset. Stephanie Zacharek of Time found Robbie to be "a criminally appealing actress, likable in just about every way," while Christopher Orr of The Atlantic called her performance "genuinely terrific." She won the Favourite Action Movie Actress award at the annual People's Choice Awards and the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in an Action Movie.

In October 2016, Robbie hosted the season 42 premiere of NBC's late-night sketch comedy Saturday Night Live, where her appearances included a parody of Ivanka Trump. The episode achieved its strongest season premiere ratings in eight years. Robbie collaborated again with Domhnall Gleeson in Simon Curtis' Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017), a biographical drama about the lives of Winnie-the-Pooh creator A. A. Milne and his family. The film and her performance received modest reviews and were a commercial failure.

Her final release of 2017 and LuckyChap Entertainment's first major production 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 for the role, Robbie met with Harding, watched old footage and interviews, worked with a voice coach to master 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 praised her portrayal as "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, an animated comedy from director Will Gluck, based on the Beatrix Potter book series. The animated feature was a box office success, grossing 351.30 M USD worldwide against a production budget of 50.00 M USD. Her next two 2018 films, the neo-noir thriller Terminal and the 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, chronicling the 1569 conflict between their two countries. Robbie had initially turned down the role, feeling "terrified" of not living up to previous portrayals of the Queen. Before each day of shooting, she spent three hours in the make-up chair having a prosthetic nose, painted-on boils, and blisters applied. Critics generally dismissed the film for its screenplay and historical inaccuracies but praised the performances of Robbie and Ronan. Yolanda Machado of TheWrap 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 a Screen Actors Guild Award.

2.5. Established Actress and Producer (2019-Present)

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 also 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 374.30 M USD. Despite some critics noting Robbie's limited 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" moment.

Also in 2019, she starred as Kayla Pospisil, a composite character based on several Fox News employees, in Jay Roach's drama Bombshell. Co-starring Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman, the film recounts stories of various female personnel at the news network and their sexual harassment by the network's chairman Roger Ailes. Robbie based her character's accent on Katherine Harris. The film received positive reviews; Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Robbie [is] at her best, the arc of her story is so crushing that it stays with you the longest." For her performances in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Bombshell, she received two nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, becoming the ninth actor to receive two simultaneous BAFTA nominations in the same category. For Bombshell, she also received nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award; all in the Best Supporting Actress category.

Robbie began the new decade by reprising the role of Harley Quinn in Cathy Yan's Birds of Prey (2020). Determined to make a female ensemble action film, she pitched the idea for the film to Warner Bros. in 2015. Robbie spent the subsequent three years developing the project under her production company, making a concerted effort to hire a female director and screenwriter. Birds of Prey, along with Robbie's performance, gained generally positive reviews; Ian Freer of Empire wrote that "the MVP is Robbie, who lends Harley charming quirk and believable menace, hinting at Harley's inner life without reams of dialogue." She received two nominations at the 46th People's Choice Awards.

Robbie served as a producer on Promising Young Woman (2020), a comedy thriller by writer-director Emerald Fennell, starring Carey Mulligan as a woman who seeks to avenge the rape and death of her best friend. The film received critical acclaim, earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2021, Robbie reprised her voice role as Flopsy Rabbit in Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, which received mixed reviews and grossed 153.80 M USD worldwide. She also made her third outing as Quinn in the standalone sequel The Suicide Squad, written and directed by James Gunn. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film was simultaneously released theatrically and on the streaming service HBO Max. Owen Gleiberman praised Robbie's "delectable performance" in it. She also served as an executive producer for the Netflix miniseries Maid.

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, with reports indicating it stood to lose near 100.00 M USD. 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, although the underperformance of her two major releases that year led some commentators to brand her as "box office poison" at the time.

In 2023, 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 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 the 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 12.50 M USD for the role, the highest for an actress in Hollywood that year. Vulture{{'s}} Alison Willmore commended Robbie for combining both "heartbreaking earnestness" and "humor" in her performance. With a worldwide gross of over 1.40 B USD, Barbie emerged as Robbie's highest-grossing release. She received further BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for her performance, in addition to a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture as a producer.

Also in 2023, Robbie produced Fennell's second directorial, Saltburn. The 2024 Sundance Film Festival marked the release of her next production, Megan Park's comedy film My Old Ass. Robbie will next star alongside Colin Farrell in Kogonada's film A Big Bold Beautiful Journey and Jacob Elordi in Fennell's Wuthering Heights, adapted from the novel.