Margot Robbie is one of the most sought-after actresses in all of Hollywood, because she has the versatility to work in essentially any genre.
Whether it’s huge budget superhero movies, historical comedies or huge Oscar-worthy dramas, Robbie has become the go-to girl to ask for any role.
With her newest film hitting theatres right now, we’re looking back at where her career began as well as her on-screen highlights, by counting down the top 25 things you never knew about Margot Robbie.
25. She was asked to be a Playboy Bunny – but said no
Margot Robbie is considered to be one of the most beautiful women in the world, so it’s really not surprising that she was asked to model for Playboy Magazine.
[rtk_adunit_top]
However, though she’s more than happy to go nude in her movies, she immediately turned the offer down.
The reason is, the man in charge of Playboy simply asked for “the woman from Wolf of Wall Street”, not even mentioning her by name.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
She replied by saying that she is happy to get naked for art, just not for things she didn’t consider to have integrity.
Given that Playboy models are typically paid incredibly high amounts, her decision to turn down the offer is an even braver one.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
Not only that, but several celebrities have seen their fame increase after doing shoots with the magazine, thanks to it’s controversial past and huge readership.
24. She extreme-diets for movie roles
Most actresses in Hollywood are asked to diet at least occassionally, and even male actors are told either to bulk up or slim down for roles.
[rtk_adunit_top]
Robbie is no different, having to alter her appearance for everything from The Wolf of Wall Street to Suicide Squad.
However, Robbie is the first to admit that she sucks at dieting, saying she flits from one extreme to another.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
In her normal life, she loves eating burgers and fries for every meal, then she switches to only salad and carrot sticks when it’s time to shoot the movie.
Typically, she’ll suvive off of mostly junk food in her everyday life, eating whenever she’s hungry and deciding on meals based on what she’s craving at the time.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
Then, a few days before shooting a movie or a magazine spread, she’ll switch to drinking tons of water and eating only vegetables, which isn’t healthy at all.
23. She slapped Leonardo DiCaprio in her Wolf of Wall Street audition
The Wolf of Wall Street was undoubtedly Margot Robbie’s big break, but the role wasn’t an easy one to land.
[rtk_adunit_top]
She had to walk into an audition with both the director and Leonardo DiCaprio and try to stand out, despite being a relatively unknown actor.
In order to take her audition to the next level, she slapped DiCaprio in the face in the middle of a scene.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
The whole audition room went silent, until DiCaprio started laughing and asked her to do it again.
In hindsight, she said she’s glad she did it, because the daring action kept her from being nervous about meeting the actor.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
Instead of fangirling over DiCaprio, which was a response she was worried about having, she was more worried about how he would react if she slapped him.
22. She banned her family from seeing The Wolf of Wall Street
Even though The Wolf of Wall Street is responsible for a lot of Margot Robbie’s current success, it’s not exactly the most family friendly film out there.
[rtk_adunit_top]
It’s basically three extended hours of sex, drugs and occasional violence, with both Robbie and DiCaprio acting like truly terrible people.
As a result, it’s the only project Robbie has done that she has banned her family from watching, including her grandparents, who are her most dedicated fans.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
She simply said the film wasn’t for them, and they should go see her next one instead.
They’re not the only people she’s banned from seeing the movie either, as most of her family have been warned not to watch the film.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
That’s not because she’s not proud of it, as she took a fairly simple character and made her complex and sympathetic, but she recognised her family just wouldn’t enjoy it.
21. People thought she had ruined a celebrity marriage
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have one of the most rock solid marriages in all of Hollywood, and are looked at as an example of true love that has lasted across the years.
[rtk_adunit_top]
They did have one blip however, and it came as a result of Margot Robbie.
Essentially, Robbie auditioned to be Smith’s co-star in Focus, but was worried that the two of them would have no chemistry.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
The opposite happened: Robbie and Smith got on so well that both the press and Smith’s wife were convinced that something untoward was going on behind the scenes.
The whole situation wasn’t helped by the press, who took every opportunity to take pictures of the two together, especially when they were laughing or having a good time.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
In pictures, that looks a lot like flirting, which lended credibility to the theory in the eyes of almost everyone.
20. She started out as the lead in an Australian soap opera
Nowadays, Robbie has a reputation for being a versatile actress who can star in anything, from Oscar-winning dramas to huge superhero franchises, to even historical and whimsical period pieces.
[rtk_adunit_top]
When it comes to her roots though, they’re a little more mundane.
Like many Australian actors, Robbie’s first break was in the Aussie soap opera Neighbours, where she played a character called Donna Freedman at the age of just 17.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Freedman’s character started as an obsessive fangirl of a popular musician in the TV show, but she soon became a fan favourite.
Once the producers and writers realised how loved she was, they gave her all sorts of storylines, including long-running relationships and affairs.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
They even made a point of giving her a same-sex kiss with another female character, which was more controversial at the time than it would probably be today.
19. She’s an amateur tattoo artist
Robbie is famous for her can-do attitude, which leads her to leap into any project without fear.
[rtk_adunit_top]
It’s also led her to pick up some unusual hobbies along the way, such as hunting wild animals and living in the wilderness.
She picked up another hobby during Suicide Squad, where she learned to tattoo using an amateur tattoo machine.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
She tattooed herself and then her Suicide Squad co-stars, and has even tattooed other celebrities live on TV.
As for why anyone was willing to go under the needle for Robbie, the cast of Suicide Squad have said that they had an awesome time on set, and wanted a way to commemorate their time together.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
18. She had a famous celebrity roommate before she hit it big
One of Robbie’s lesser known roles was in Pan Am, a historical comedy series set in the 1960s.
[rtk_adunit_top]
In the show, both Robbie and Christina Ricci played stewardesses, and they actually roomed together during shooting.
Robbie has since said she was really grateful to have Ricci as a roommate, as she would always struggle to get into the tight vintage undergarments by herself.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
That meant that every morning before work, Ricci would end up zipping up her costumes and undergarments for her.
The saddest thing is, despite the show being super well recieved by both critics and audiences, a dip in viewing figures before the end of the season meant it wasn’t renewed.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
17. She went to circus school as a teen
Margot Robbie has always considered herself to be a bit of a tomboy, distancing herself from traditionally feminine things at every opportunity since she was young.
[rtk_adunit_top]
This extended to what she did after school.
Instead of ballet lessons, art classes or singing, Robbie spent her evenings at circus school, learning to juggle and trapeze alongside clowns and contortionists.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
She claims the experience is what helped her get the part in Suicide Squad.
It definitely helped, as Harley Quinn’s character has dancerly movements mixed in with the brutal violence, and definitely has a circus-inspired look and name.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
16. She drinks shots of alcohol before shooting sex scenes
Sex scenes are an inevitability in Hollywood, and some actresses deal with them better than others.
[rtk_adunit_top]
Robbie has never shied away from doing them, but she does have a unique way of making them bearable.
When it came time to do the sex scenes lined up for The Wolf of Wall Street, she made sure to take a shot before each load of takes.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
That helped her be buzzed enough to act confident and in character in front of the cameras.
According to interviews, her preferred pre-sex scene shot was tequila, even when shooting started at nine in the morning.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
15. People are convinced she’s lying about her age
Everyone knows that it’s impolite to ask a lady about her age, but apparently the saying doesn’t apply to actresses.
[rtk_adunit_top]
For women in the entertainment world, age is a huge thing that can even determine the work they get, even if it shouldn’t.
That means that for a long time, women in the world of acting have lied about their age out of necessity.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
For over a decade, rumours have abounded that Margot Robbie has been doing the same thing.
It all started when in 2008, an interview claimed that she was 23 years old, a number that didn’t line up with what the public thought was true.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
It could have been an honest mistake, but most people accused Robbie of lying on purpose, an accusation that stuck around until people eventually lost interest.
14. She had to work hard to get into acting
Margot Robbie is such a staple of Hollywood now that it’s hard to imagine it without her, but she wasn’t always on the path to fame.
[rtk_adunit_top]
Though she knew from a very young age that acting was what she wanted to do, there was a time where it didn’t look like it was going to happen for her.
During her teenage years, going to auditions had to take a backseat to working, which she had to do to help support her family.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Then, once she graduated high school, she had to work multiple jobs to help make ends meet.
She worked at a Subway and in retail, while also cleaning houses, until an opportunity to be in an indipendent short film set her on her dream path.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
13. She’s obsessed with ice hockey
Margot Robbie grew up in Australia, which isn’t exactly lacking in sports culture, but definitely favours some kinds of sport over others.
[rtk_adunit_top]
On the list of Australia’s favourite spectator sports, ice hockey is nowhere near the top, but that never stopped Robbie.
Robbie grew up obsessed with the sport, and always wanted to learn how to play as a kid.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Unfortunately, the hot weather of her home country meant there was never anywhere she could learn or practise.
Instead, she got majorly into field hockey instead, but had the opportunity to join an ametuer ice hockey team when she moved to the states.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
She loves it, and goes to see New York Ranger games in between her own practise sessions, but is open about the fact that her skating needs work.
12. She demanded extra nudity for one of her roles
We’ve said already that every actor has their own reaction to sex scenes, both in how they deal with them and if they even choose to do them.
[rtk_adunit_top]
Some actors draw a hard line at doing them, others will do them but only with a body double and tasteful editing, while others will do it if they feel it’s for the right project.
The same goes for nudity, which is something actresses in Hollywood typically have to contend with way more than their male counterparts.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
In response to this, some male actors like Tom Hiddleston have started requesting more nudity, while some actresses have started requesting less.
Margot Robbie had the opposite problem while shooting The Wolf Of Wall Street however, as the director told her she could wear a robe for the film’s famous seduction scene.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
Robbie thanked the director for his consideration, but said that she knew the character well enough to know that she’d go nude, in order to emphasise that her body is her only way of gaining power.
11. She identifies herself as a tom boy
A large part of a Hollywood actress’ life is glamour: red carpets, photoshoots and magazine interviews.
[rtk_adunit_top]
Being in a hair and make-up chair is an unavoidable part of the job, and one a lot of actresses enjoy.
Margot Robbie, as it turns out, is not that kind of actress. She actually isn’t a fan of fashion and glamour.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
When she’s not working, she sticks to jeans and t-shirts, and it’s super unsual to ever find her in a dress.
That makes sense, when you remember she had a super rural upbringing, which involved building sheds and hunting wild animals on her own farm. Those aren’t things you can usually do in a skirt and heels.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
10. She hates Harley Quinn
The true mark of an actor isn’t how well they play characters who seem a lot like they are in real life, although a lot of actors make a career out of that.
[rtk_adunit_top]
Instead, the best way to judge an actor is to look at how well they play characters that are nothing like them.
Margot Robbie got that opportunity when she starred in Suicide Squad as Harley Quinn, a character she admitted was nothing like herself.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Even further than that, she also made a point of saying that she disliked Harley Quinn as a person, and couldn’t agree with her personality, morals or motives.
Instead, she had to focus really hard on how sympathetic the brokenness of Harley Quinn’s character was, in order to play her with any kind of likability.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
9. Her nickname as a child was Maggot
Margot Robbie is one of the most glamorous women in cinema, who also happens to be confident, fashionable, funny and intelligent.
[rtk_adunit_top]
In short, it’s hard to imagine her ever having many cringe-worthy or embarrassing things from her past that she’d like to forget.
However, she does have one embarrassing fact from when she was a kid, and it only serves to make her even more relatable.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
It turns out, she had a less than flattering nickname when she was young, and that nickname was “Maggot”.
The nickname started in her own family, as her siblings called her it often, but soon expanded so that everyone in her school was in on the joke. Poor thing.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
8. She’s struggled with dating
Given how put together and perfect Margot Robbie is, it’s hard to imagine her having trouble doing anything.
[rtk_adunit_top]
We already know she can act, dance, do trapeze, build things from scratch, hunt wild animals and skate – so what can’t she do?
Well, it turns out that the answer to that question is dating, or at least it was, up until very recently.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Robbie has said in interviews that she struggles to even get a date, which makes the idea of ever having a boyfriend seem impossible.
Obviously that’s not true anymore, but for a while, her busy schedule and superstar status was a serious barrier to her dating life, even if she did eventually overcome it.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
7. She beat Emma Stone to Tarzan
Hollywood is a highly competitive place. As much as many actresses are friends, and even more know each other from years of working together in the same space, they’re also constantly vying for the same roles.
[rtk_adunit_top]
That means that to be a successful actress you also have to be an actress who has also beaten out a lot of others for roles.
Margot Robbie definitely fits that definition. She has beaten out several recognisable names for roles like the ones she has in Tarzan and Suicide Squad, winning the roles over Emma Stone and Jessica Chastain.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
To be in The Wolf of Wall Street, she also had to beat Blake Lively and Amber Heard, as well as Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
In some cases, she beat them after rounds and rounds of auditions, but in the case of Suicide Squad, she was asked to take the part without ever setting foot in an audition room.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
6. She was almost a Marvel superhero
Every actress has that one big break that allows them to take on bigger and more prestigious roles, and for Margot Robbie that break was The Wolf of Wall Street.
[rtk_adunit_top]
After playing Jordon’s sympathetic, if shallow, trophy wife – Robbie was flooded with offers to be in a bunch of different movies, including superhero films.
While some ended up coming to fruition, like Suicide Squad and the upcoming Harley Quinn solo spin-off film, others were more disappointing.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
For example, the role she was most excited about – Sue Storm in Fantastic Four – was given to another actress.
Though she went through rounds of auditions and begged for the part due to her own nerdy love of comic books, she never actually got the part.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
Looking back, that may actually be a positive thing, as the Fantastic Four movie did famously badly.
5. She goes over the top for Halloween
Given that a big part of acting is dressing up as a character day in and day out, you’d think that actors wouldn’t be too keen on dressing up in their downtime.
[rtk_adunit_top]
However, several celebrities have become infamous for their over the top Halloween costumes, which include advanced special FX make-up and costumes tailor-made by a whole team of people.
Margot Robbie isn’t one of the actresses who pulls out a new costume every October that has clearly been planned months in advance, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have fun playing around with costumes.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
For example, her most recent headline-making outfit couldn’t have cost more than a few dollars, but it still made a splash all over the internet.
In case it wasn’t obvious, Robbie decided on James Franco’s character from Spring Breakers as the perfect Halloween costume, and took the whole thing to hilariously nineties levels.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
4. Moving to America was a sacrifice
Any person with a passion has to sacrifice a lot to get good at their craft, whether that’s time, money, energy or something else entirely.
[rtk_adunit_top]
For Margot Robbie, what she had to sacrifice to live her dream life, was almost everything about the life she’d had before.
When her acting career began to pick up, and more opportunities started coming her way, she realised she could never fulfil her potential while living in Australia.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Almost all the projects she was getting offers to work on were in the US, which made moving there seem inevitable for her.
Eventually she made the shift, and soon realised it was the right thing to do, but in the meantime she had to leave her hometown and everyone in it, including her family and boyfriend.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
3. She can’t tell the difference between Ed Sheeran and Prince Harry
Being an actress is a job like any other, and it’s also seriously hard work, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t considerable perks.
[rtk_adunit_top]
One of those perks is the opportunity to go to incredibly flashy parties, normally attended by a bunch of other A-Listers that you’d never get to meet in normal life.
Robbie has been a celebrity for long enough that she’s kind of a veteran of Hollywood nightlife, and knows the etiquette that goes along with attending certain kinds of parties.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
With that said, everybody makes mistakes occasionally, and Robbie had a moment of misunderstanding that had pretty hilarious repercussions.
Essentially, she was at a Hollywood housewarming when she followed Ed Sheeran into a photo booth, and took a lot of playful photos with him and a group of other celebs.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
It was only when the pictures hit the tabloids the next day that she realised the friend she had made wasn’t actually Ed Sheeran, but was instead Prince Harry. Whoops.
2. She refused to lose weight for Tarzan because she wanted to eat and drink at the British pubs they were shooting near
We’ve already talked about how Margot Robbie doesn’t deal with dieting well, opting to bounce between eating fries and drinking beers and eating carrot sticks none stop for days.
[rtk_adunit_top]
However, despite the fact that she isn’t very good at it, Robbie usually agrees to lose weight or put on muscle whenever the movie requires it.
One exception to this was the live-action Disney movie Tarzan, which starred Robbie as the scientist’s daughter and eventually Tarzan’s love interest Jane.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
Robbie made it clear to the casting directors and producers immediately that she wouldn’t be losing weight for the role, and the reason why is pretty hilarious.
The reason for this choice was that the movie was shooting in England, and Robbie wanted the chance to eat and drink at all of the British pubs they were shooting in and around. That kind of diet is not compatible with weight loss, so she chose not to lose any.
[rtk_adunit_bottom]
1. She’s starred in some serious flops
Margot Robbie has had her share of critical darlings, ever since she starred in the gratuitous but brilliantly directed Wolf of Wall Street.
[rtk_adunit_top]
With that said, for every excellent film she’s had the pleasure to act in, she’s been in some not so great movies too.
Her most famous flop was obviously Suicide Squad, which even Robbie realised was not going to come out the way her and her castmates had envisioned it.
[rtk_adunit_middle]
However, even before appearing in DC’s most disappointing ensemble movie to date, she had practise dealing with flops much earlier in her career.
In fact, one of earliest movies she appeared in was Vigilante, an action thriller that bombed at the box office and was hated by both audiences and critics.
In the movie, she plays the girlfriend of a man who becomes a brutal anti-hero when she is assaulted and then murdered, basically making her character just a catalyst for the man’s story. Yikes.
[rtk_adunit_end]