Margot Robbie

Margot Elise Robbie was born in Dalby, Queensland, and grew up in the Gold Coast hinterland. She attended Somerset College, where she studied drama, and worked several jobs while pursuing acting. As a child, she staged performances at home and attended circus school, where she earned a certificate in trapeze at the age of eight.

Robbie began appearing professionally while still young, including roles in the independent films Vigilante and I.C.U. and guest appearances on Australian television. Her first major television role was Donna Freedman in the soap opera Neighbours, which she played from 2008 to 2011 and which earned her two Logie Award nominations. She later moved to the United States and played flight attendant Laura Cameron in the short-lived series Pan Am.

Robbie made her feature-film debut in About Time in 2013, but her breakthrough came later that year in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street. She played Naomi Lapaglia, the wife of Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Jordan Belfort. During her audition, Robbie improvised a slap directed at DiCaprio, a decision that helped secure her the role.

She followed the film with leading roles in Focus, opposite Will Smith, and Z for Zachariah, in which she played one of the survivors of a nuclear disaster. For Focus, she learned pickpocketing from Apollo Robbins. She also made a memorable cameo in The Big Short, explaining mortgage-backed securities and subprime loans while sitting in a bathtub.

In 2016, Robbie became the first actor to portray Harley Quinn in a live-action film when she appeared in David Ayer's Suicide Squad. She prepared for the role with gymnastics, boxing, aerial silk training, and underwater breath-holding exercises, and performed most of her own stunts. Her performance was widely identified as one of the film's strongest elements, and she won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in an Action Movie.

Robbie reprised Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey in 2020 and in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad in 2021. She pitched the idea for Birds of Prey to Warner Bros. and developed the project over several years, with the aim of making a female-led ensemble action film that hired a female director and screenwriter.

Robbie portrayed figure skater Tonya Harding in the 2017 biographical dark comedy I, Tonya, which was also the first release produced by her company, LuckyChap Entertainment. She met Harding before filming, studied archival footage and interviews, worked with a voice coach, and underwent months of skating training with choreographer Sarah Kawahara.

Robbie performed some of the skating routines herself, while Harding's triple axel was recreated digitally. Her performance received nominations for the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress. The role established her as a performer capable of carrying a demanding dramatic lead.

Robbie played the title character and served as a producer on Greta Gerwig's Barbie, released in 2023. She helped secure the film rights from Mattel and hired Gerwig to write and direct the project. Ryan Gosling played Ken, while the ensemble included Simu Liu, Issa Rae, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera, Emma Mackey, Dua Lipa, and Michael Cera.

The film follows Barbie as an existential crisis takes her from Barbie Land into the real world. It became the highest-grossing film of 2023 and Robbie's highest-grossing release. Her work as a producer contributed to the film's Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, while her performance earned nominations including the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Actress.

Robbie co-founded LuckyChap Entertainment in 2014 with Tom Ackerley, Sophia Kerr, and Josey McNamara. The company focuses on female-led stories and projects made with female writers, directors, and producers. Its productions have included I, Tonya, Promising Young Woman, Birds of Prey, Dreamland, Barbie, and Saltburn.

Robbie also served as an executive producer on the series Dollface and the miniseries Maid. She produced Promising Young Woman, which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, and continued producing films including My Old Ass and Wuthering Heights. Robbie and Ackerley married in 2016 after meeting during the production of Suite Française.