Red hot Margot’s skating to stardom
This Aussie star is fast establishing herself as a genuine queen of the screen, writes Karlie Rutherford.
Confidential
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The Golden Globes red carpet was swarming with some of the best and beautiful stars Hollywood has to offer — Angelina Jolie, Reese Witherspoon, Emma Stone, Helen Mirren. But there was one 27-year-old Aussie who the world’ers photographers were scrambling to make sure they caught: Margot Robbie.
In just six years she has transformed herself from an Aussie soap star on Ten’s Neighbours, to a Hollywood awards darling. She has sealed that transformation with her role as a producer on the breakout black comedy hit I, Tonya.
And she also happens to play the title role of disgraced American figure skater Tonya Harding.
The new responsibility has weighed heavily on the star.
Before Christmas she said: “The weight has never been on my shoulders in this way. It’s always been shared around. And to be a producer on this (means) I can’t blame anyone else if people don’t like it.
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“I can’t say, ‘The filmmakers made some bad choices!’ Because, well, I was a part of all those choices. If this sucks, it’s my fault in large part.”
Fortunately, the film has received a rapturous response. Last week Robbie was rewarded with the Critcs’ Choice award for best actor in a comedy. A clearly shocked star thanked critics for “embracing” the film and said she was honoured to take the gong.
Days earlier she missed out at the Golden Globes (losing to Saoirse Ronan, with whom she’ll star in this year’s Mary Queen of Scots) and the film itself was also up for a gong.
In accepting the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, co-star Allison Janney called Robbie a “quadruple threat”. The Aussie has since been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award, a BAFTA, and is a hot tip to be honoured at March’s Academy Awards.
However behind that megawatt smile and down-to-earth demeanour, Robbie has worked incredibly hard to change the industry’s perception of her as bombshell babe after her breakthrough role as The Duchess opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s Wolf Of Wall Street.
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“I don’t want to burn hard and fast and then disappear,” Robbie told The Hollywood Reporter last week, explaining why she immediately rejected “hot chick” roles after Wolf. Instead she wanted a career that had “quality, versatility and longevity”.
That’s also why she’s turned her hand to producing, establishing her production company LuckyChap Entertainment with now husband Tom Ackerley and two close friends. I, Tonya is the company’s first release and will be followed by a new thriller, Terminal.
“I’ve spent the past 10 years of my life on sets, and after a while, it’s like, ‘I want to have a say when I read a script that I really love,’ ” Robbie told Hollywood Reporter about her move into production. Film and TV veteran Janney makes the comparison between Robbie and Hollywood golden-era star Katharine Hepburn.
“Katharine put together The Philadelphia Story because she wasn’t getting the parts that she wanted, and that’s what Margot did,” Janney told the Reporter. “She was going to be typecast as this beautiful young thing, and she wanted to find interesting roles for herself and for other women, so she took the bull by the horns and she formed this company.”
MORE: Someone get Margot Robbie behind the camera
Robbie’s dedication to transform herself into Harding — including undergoing rigorous skating training and spending six months watching every single interview and routine Harding did — was a marvel to her co-stars.
“I felt like I lived at the ice-skating rink,” Robbie says. “Every time my alarm would go off at like 5am I’d be like, ‘I can’t do it again today, I’m still so bruised from yesterday.’ ”
To those close to her, however, this work ethic comes as no surprise. Raised the third child of four to a single mum, Robbie was a hustler from an early age.
Rather than wallow in her family’s lack of luxuries, Robbie set out to make them by herself. While in high school she worked as a house cleaner, a retail assistant at a surf shop and as a sandwich maker at Subway.
From those jobs she earnt enough money to travel to Melbourne — where she persistently phoned casting directors until she scored an audition, and subsequent role in Neighbours.
“My family has no connection to the entertainment industry whatsoever, so when I started acting, everyone was like, ‘That’s fun, but when are you going to actually get a real job?’”
The ambitious young actor had no plans of getting that real job, though. Instead, she set her eye on the bright lights of Tinseltown after three years on the soap.
Since Wolf of Wall Street she’s starred in everything from huge blockbusters (Suicide Squad and Tarzan) to indie features (she met Ackerley while working on Suite Francaise).
Robbie and Ackerley tied the knot in an intimate Byron Bay ceremony in December 2016. Although not one to divulge too much about her personal life, in the past Robbie has remarked that married life is no different to when they dated and roomed together.
“That’s the thing, we were best friends and roommates before and now we’re like best friends and roommates still, so nothing’s really changed at all,” Robbie told Vogue Australia.
“Other than the fact that I get to wear (my wedding ring) on the weekends. I can’t obviously wear it during the week when I’m working — I don’t want to lose it on set.”
In between promoting their movie, the couple returned to Queensland’s Sunshine Coast for Christmas, where it was reported that a makeup-free Robbie was more than happy to pose for fans while shopping in Harvey Norman and asked an Uber driver to accompany her and her husband to a party. The driver, DJ Robert Bregnsdal, later wrote on his Facebook page the couple were “probably one of the nicest I’ve met and very down to Earth”.
Uber drivers best be prepared to see more of Robbie. She says she plans to spend more time in Australia making movies with LuckyChap this year.
“I miss the thunderstorms more than anything; nowhere else has thunderstorms like you do on the Gold Coast,” she said.
“Obviously big things like my family and my friends, being there to see my nephew grow up, weddings, funerals, all those big important moments where everyone comes together. To be away during those things sucks. But even the small things suck. Like, I miss Burger Rings, I miss Nutri-Grain! I can’t wait to go back.”