From unbeliever to millionaire: how Margot Robbie’s self-confessed ambition has made her the year’s highest-paid actress

For Margot Robbie there is no better motivation than disbelief. As disbelieving as ambitious, the Australian interpreter could not believe her eyes when she saw herself for the first time in New York’s Times Square in front of a giant advertisement in which she appeared as part of the Serie Pan Am. “I still have the photo,” he told this newspaper a couple of years ago, longing for a time when he was still nobody. Then she doubted that she was “the most attractive blonde in the world” as the script said about her The wolf of Wall Street (2013), the Martin Scorsese movie that put her on the map. Still she continued to hesitate. “I remember telling a friend that: ‘I haven’t worked for six weeks, I’m sure there’s nothing else,’” she added, laughing at her doubts. Some doubts that Hollywood has not had: this July, according to the magazine VarietyMargot Robbie has just become the highest paid actress of the year thanks to a salary of 12.5 million dollars (or euros, now that they are on par) for her work in the next film Barbie.

It should be specified that Robbie, 32, is the best paid actress because, judging by the 17 men who precede her – with salaries ranging from 100 million dollars Tom Cruise for his Top Gun: Maverick to the also 12.5 million dollars from Ryan Gosling for the same Barbie starring Robbie—, Hollywood pay parity is far from being a close reality. But if we talk about female interpretations, it is situated ahead of Millie Bobby Brown (who received this year 10 million dollars for his return to the series Enola Holmes), Emily Blunt (who only has received four million dollars for Oppenheimer), Jamie Lee Curtis ($3.5 million for Halloween Ends) and the 1.8 million dollars by Anya Taylor-Joy by Furious.

Robbie’s mistrust is not at odds with his worth. And if she doesn’t want to see it, the others are there to remind her. Like Scorsese, who in addition to comparing her to Carole Lombard, Joan Crawford and Ida Lupino for her humor, her resilience and the emotions she is capable of showing on camera, respectively, described the Australian in her day as someone “with a surprising audacity and leaves a mark. For boldness, the one she showed in the role in The wolf of Wall Streetwhere he surprised Leonardo DiCaprio in the face of the audition.

In her next job with DiCaprio, she showed the same predisposition, in this case with director Quentin Tarantino, to whom she sent a letter, as if she didn’t want the thing, letting him know how much she admired his cinema and especially point blank love (1993), which the actress described as her favorite movie. Tarantino already had the interpreter of I, Tonya in the head to revive Sharon Tate’s memory in Once upon a time in… Hollywood (2019), but the letter surely did not hurt. “Margot has a visual vibrancy and personal qualities that you don’t see every day. She has what it takes”, she summed up after directing Tarantino to EL PAÍS about her choice.

What Robbie has is a hunger for cinema since he started working on the series neighbours, a classic of Australian television through which most of the actors of that country have passed and that now, After 9,000 chapters and 37 years in broadcast, it comes to an end. “Of course I am ambitious. My career is my motivation. I came to the United States with a plan and I keep looking forward, “she acknowledged in the interview with this medium. She came to him as a child, from that Queensland (Australia) in which Margot Elise Robbie grew up and where she already pointed out ways of doing business and dramaqueen when he started selling his brother’s used toys on the sidewalk outside his house.

Now she jokes about all of it, but something of that girl is still alive in her characters, and that she has them of all kinds: from those semi-unknown movies like french suite either Z for Zachariah to the great successes within the genre of superheroes playing Harley Quinn twice (suicide squad Y Birds of prey) and his two Oscar nominations with I, Tonya (2018) or The scandal (2020). “It is true that many of the women I have played share my ambition. And that this industry is tough. But it is also true that I am full of doubts like anyone. You never know how what you do will end up being, ”she summed up then.

Perhaps for this reason, seeking greater control over his work or the content of his films, since 2014 there has been that other face of Robbie called LuckyChap Entertainment. This is your producer. which she founded together with her husband, the British director Tom Ackerley, and other friends and with which she promotes content not only as her own vehicle but for other actresses, as was the case with A promising young woman which, starring Carey Mulligan, led to the Oscar for its director, Emerald Fennell, for the script of this black comedy about a young woman who seeks revenge. “Margot is an extraordinary person. That is why she is doing so well as a producer, someone determined to do different things and raise the voices of women,” the director and screenwriter summarized to EL PAÍS, using the words “interesting”, “strange”, “intelligent” and ” delicious”, as well as “great support”, to describe her benefactor.

The terms that her husband would use for her are unknown, because despite the six years they have been married hardly anything is known about them. That they met when Ackerley, also 32, was working as an assistant director on one of the most indies from Robby. That they moved in together as soon as they attended their first gala at the Golden Globes with The wolf of Wall Street and that they are still there, not only as a couple but as co-workers. And that they have a long way to go, judging by the list of premieres that the interpreter accumulates.

Prior to this Barbie where, under the direction of Greta Gerwighas become the highest paid actress, in addition to in the incarnation of the Mattel dollit has a premiere pending amsterdamby David O. Russell; Babylonwhere he will play the silent movie star Clara Bow under the orders of Damien Chazelle; and the Asteroid City that Wes Anderson has shot in Spain. In addition, a new reincarnation of the saga of Ocean’s Eleventhe war drama Mean alongside Matthew Schoenaerts, another version of Tank Girl he wants to produce and even a new incarnation of the saga of Pirates of the Caribbean in which he would replace Jack Sparrow himself. Obviously, now Margot Robbie can have no doubts about her career. Nor time to count the money.