"Playing a bad guy is always more fun than playing the good guy."
Margot Elise Robbie (born 2 July 1990 in Dalby) is an Australian actress and producer.
She started off in Australian independent films before joining the cast of Neighbours. Following her move to the United States, she starred in the short-lived flight attendant drama Pan Am.
She reached fame with her role in Martin Scorsese's well-received The Wolf of Wall Street, for which she gained critical acclaim. Her following breakout role came from portraying the first live-action film version of perennial DC Comics Ensemble Dark Horse Harley Quinn in David Ayer's Suicide Squad. She also has appeared on Saturday Night Live. She eventually got nominated at the Oscars for her acclaimed role of Tonya Harding in I, Tonya. In 2020, she signed on to star in an upcoming spinoff of the Pirates of the Caribbean series.
Selected filmography:
- Neighbours (2008 — 2011) as Donna Freedman
- Pan Am (2011 — 2012) as Laura Cameron
- About Time (2013) as Charlotte
- The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) as Naomi Lapaglia Belfort
- Z for Zachariah (2015) as Ann Burden
- Focus (2015) as Jess Barrett
- The Big Short (2015) as herself (cameo)
- Suite Française (2015) as Céline
- Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016) as Tanya Vanderpol
- The Legend of Tarzan (2016) as Jane Porter
- DC Extended Universe as Harley Quinn:
- Suicide Squad (2016)
- Birds of Prey (2020)
- The Suicide Squad (2021)
- Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) as Daphne de Sélincourt
- I, Tonya (2017) as Tonya Harding
- Peter Rabbit (2018) as Flopsy (voice)
- Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2021)
- Terminal (2018) as Annie / Bonnie
- Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018) as Audrey (cameo)
- Mary, Queen of Scots (2018) as Queen Elizabeth I
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) as Sharon Tate
- Bombshell (2019) as Kayla Popisil
- Dreamland (2019) as Alison Wells.
- Barbie (2023) as Barbie
- Untitled Pirates of the Caribbean film (TBA)
Associated tropes:
- Does Not Like Shoes: It's not a definite preference (see her Shoe Size Angst below), but she is partial to a barefoot walk in her native Australia at least. She brings it up in relation to Sharon Tate's own dislike of shoes during this interview
about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (with Sharon's barefooting being depicted more than once during the runtime):Interviewer: There's been a lot of buzz about the bare feet in the film. How does that speak to the freedom of the time and to [Sharon] Tate?
Margot: Sharon apparently hated wearing shoes and she would sometimes put rubber bands around her ankles to make it look like she was wearing sandals so she could get into restaurants. I feel the same! I'm a Gold Coast girl. You can get away going to most places barefoot. - Evil Is Cool: Invoked. As her quote says, she thinks playing villains is a lot cooler than playing heroes.
- Femme Fatale: Often plays roles of this nature, such as in The Wolf of Wall Street, Focus, and Suicide Squad.
- Ms. Fanservice:
- In The Wolf of Wall Street (in which she did full frontal nudity at her own request), Focus, and Suicide Squad.
- In The Big Short, she is one of several celebrities who make a cameo appearance as themselves to break from the movie and explain complicated financial concepts to the audience. Her cameo involves her sipping champagne in a bubble bath.
- No Stunt Double: Has done quite a few stunts without a double in all of her DCEU features to date, including a particularly elaborate stunt in The Suicide Squad where Harley kills a henchman while chained in mid-air and steals a key from the body using her feet. Director James Gunn was disappointed when he discovered that Robbie's face was obscured in much of the footage, making it look like a stunt double had taken over, and made sure to get the word out that it really was her doing the work.Gunn: She's like a human Swiss army knife.
- Playing Against Type: She's recently done serious roles that do not involve her being the Ms. Fanservice.
- Separated-at-Birth Casting: Emma Mackey is often said to be a lookalike of Robbie, and both of them happen to have been cast in the Barbie film of Greta Gerwig.
- She's Got Legs: The Wolf of Wall Street did a rather memorable fixation◊ on her legs, as did the role of Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. As mentioned in No Stunt Double, The Suicide Squad sees her outright kill a man with her legs.
- Shoe Size Angst: She is a size 8.5, which is rather disproportionate to her 5'6'' frame.“I have big feet. Do you know how embarrassing it is when you ask for a shoe and they look at you like, ‘No, we don’t make these heels for Bigfoot, sorry,. And I’m 5’6. I’m not that tall!”
