Margot Robbie – Modern Movie Star

In the space of just over 6 years, Margot Robbie has gone from relative unknown to a Oscar nominee and one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. However, the way she has done it has differed greatly from the traditional method, and she has forged her own way to the top in a very modern and admirable way.

Starting her career in her homeland of Australia working multiple different jobs (Subway, surf shop etc) while she tried to make her way in the industry, she discovered a love for acting after doing a part in her friends short film and after that, it wasn’t too long before she got a key role in one of Australia’s biggest soaps, Neighbours, which has often be used as a launching pad for Aussie talent to get careers in America. After three years on the show, she got her first break in America with the short lived TV show Pan Am, which finally got her on Hollywood’s radar, and then not long after that, she got her huge break as she was cast as the female lead alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street.

During her final audition, Robbie once described how she felt it was going poorly, and in a last ditch attempt to make an impact during an improv heavy scene, she hit DiCaprio across the face. In the immediate time afterwards she feared for her career, but DiCaprio proceeded to laugh and tell her to do it again, and Scorsese has since said that it was in this moment he knew he had found his star. For her role in the film, Robbie would be required to play the part of Naomi, a sexually adventurous blonde bombshell with an explosive temper, and Robbie would have to do numerous full frontal nude scenes, something she was initially reluctant to do at such a young age but eventually decided was the right thing for the character. Once the film was released, everyone raved about this newcomer who stood toe to toe with a legend like DiCaprio and more than held her own, and in that moment a new star was born. However, it was the way she proceeded with her career from there that really made her stand out.

It would have been very easy for someone as beautiful and in demand as Robbie to completely embrace her initial reception as a sex symbol and continue to chase these sorts of roles. However, Robbie was smart and realised that she didn’t want to just take on the same sort of role and instead took on numerous varied parts in the following couple of years, including in indie drama Z for Zachariah, thriller Focus, and comedy Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. However, the role she is now most famous for came along in 2016 when she played the sexy and psychotic girlfriend of the Joker (the character is much more than this but this was the initial pitch), Harley Quinn, in David Ayer’s much maligned Suicide Squad. Despite the film receiving very poor reviews, Robbie’s performance was the one universally acclaimed thing and made her into a pop culture icon. From this position, it would’ve been expected for Robbie to continue to chase blockbuster roles, but instead she used the production company she had recently formed to forge her own destiny the way she wanted to, and just a year after Suicide Squad, she received her first Academy Award nomination for her transformative lead performance in 2017s I, Tonya, the first film she released under her production company LuckyChap. She followed this up in with well received performances in Goodbye Christopher Robin and Mary, Queen of Scots.

This essentially brings us up to date in 2019, where she has already had a huge year and is tipped to receive her second Oscar nomination and potentially first win. In July of this year she starred in the incredibly well received Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where she was directed by Quentin Tarantino and was reunited with Leonardo DiCaprio. This role was in the discussion to potentially land her an Oscar nomination, but earlier this week the first reactions started to come in to her role in the December release Bombshell, which focuses on the Roger Ailes scandal, and she has suddenly become a supporting actress front runner for her performance. There is still a long time to go and things could certainly change, but Robbie has already been proven right with the career she forged for herself.

In 2020, she will finally return to the role of Harley Quinn, but this time in a film that she herself will produce, the female centric spin off Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of one Harley Quinn, a film that is already generating large amounts of conversation, months before its release. In 2021 she will again play Quinn, this time in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, and from there, it is likely she may play the character many more times as Harley becomes one of the lynchpins of the DCEU. Alongside this unique franchise role, she will likely continue to produce roles for herself in a variety of films that really challenge her as an actress and will carry on proving that she is one of the industry’s finest, and is a truly modern movie star.