The actress left Ramsay Street in search of the bright lights of Tinseltown just 10 years ago and is now worth more than £7million, yet she says she’s still a bag of nerves before a new role
She has gone from soap siren to one of the most sought-after names in Hollywood.
Few movie stars have had a rise to fame as stratospheric as Margot Robbie.
The actress left Ramsay Street in search of the bright lights of Tinseltown just 10 years ago and is now worth more than £7million.
But despite her phenomenal success, the Oscar nominee admits she is still a bag of nerves before getting before the cameras.
Discussing reprising her role as Harley Quinn in a sequel to action film Suicide Squad, Margot says: “Even though Harley is a character I have played before, I still got scared before shooting because I’m always nervous to start any job.
“I have this complete crisis of faith and think, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not even good at acting and I can’t do this’.
“Every time I do a movie, I turn to my husband and I’m like, ‘I don’t think I can do this’. He says something like, ‘You do this every time. You’ll be fine’.”
The first Suicide Squad film in 2016 is one of Margot’s three movies – along with The Legend of Tarzan and The Wolf of Wall Street – that grossed over $100m, helping the Aussie’s career skyrocket.
The movie, based on the DC Comics supervillain team of the same name and which also starred Will Smith and Cara Delevingne, broke box office records.
In the sequel, Margot is joined by the likes of Idris Elba, Sylvester Stallone and John Cena as Task Force X are given the job of destroying a Nazi-era lab… but encounter a giant alien starfish.
Margot says: “I was so excited to play Harley again. I love playing her because she is so fun and so relentless. She’s exhausting but so much fun.
“There were some very interesting and crazy sets for this film.
“We had tons of water gushing everywhere. We were exploding beaches like it was a war film. We were running off things attached to wires. It was insane.
“I think in this day and age, people watch stuff like that and they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s all CGI’. It’s not in this movie.”
Another thing fans of the film might not know is Margot performed all her own stunts. “I do but only because of the incredible stunt team that choreograph it,” she says.
“They take time to make sure I can do everything I possibly can.”
She adds: “Even if this movie wasn’t as incredible as it is, it’s still worth seeing just because it’s so nice to be able to go to a movie theatre again.
“Saying that, it just so happens that this is arguably one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, comic book film ever. You don’t want to miss it.”
Despite her success, Margot, 31, says she has not forgotten her humble roots. Growing up on a fruit farm on the Gold Coast in Queensland in Australia, she and her three siblings were raised by their mum.
Aged 16, Margot made sandwiches at a Subway branch and was an assistant at a surf store.
After Margot moved to Melbourne in pursuit of acting opportunities, her big break came aged 17 in 2008 when she was cast as Donna Freedom in soap opera Neighbours.
She quit three years later, gambling on moving to the US to pursue a Hollywood career.
It paid off, and after roles in TV drama series Pan Am and romcom movie About Time, she played Naomi Lapaglia, the wife of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street.
She also spent time in London after filming wartime flick Suite Française.
Margot lived in a cramped house share in Clapham with six friends she met on the set – including the assistant director Tom Ackerley, 31, who is now her husband.
Legend of Tarzan star Alexander Skarsgard said: “She was living in a house with six other people, kind of a frat-house vibe, and on weekends she would go to Amsterdam and sleep in bunk beds in a youth hostel with backpackers, or to some music festival in northern England and sleep in a tent. She’s not precious at all.”
Margot was living in London when she landed a role in 2016 film Legend of Tarzan alongside Alexander.
Margot and her British husband have since traded up to a £2.1m villa in Hollywood, which they have called home since 2017.
The actress is still a big fan of Britain, even celebrating her recent birthday with a party based on ITV2 show Love Island.
“I seem to love a lot of British things. I love Harry Potter, I love my husband and I love Love Island. It’s great,” she says.
She started a film production company, called LuckyChap, in 2014 with her husband and two friends.
Starring in the company’s first major motion picture – 2017 movie I, Tonya, about US ice skater Tonya Harding – she got an Oscar nomination for best actress.
Reflecting on 10 years since she left Australia, Margot says: “I have been so fortunate to have some amazing opportunities.
“I did Wolf of Wall Street and then got to do something completely the opposite in Suite Française – I was a peasant farm girl and looked hideous but I met my husband on the job so it was OK.
“We started our production company with our best friends and it continues to be a wonderful group dynamic. We all really work well together. I feel very lucky.”
Like her character Harley, Margot also has a motto she lives by, which equally reflects her lack of pretension, despite her achievements.
She says: “Mine is, ‘Someone’s going to do it, so it might as well be you’.”
SOURCE: mirror.co.uk
