Margot Robbie Embraces Collective Consciousness, Lensed By Max Papendieck For ES Magazine July 2018

Actor Margot Robbie is styled by Jenny Kennedy in images by Max Papendieck for Evening Standard Magazine July 2018./ Hair by Bryce Scarlett; makeup by Patti Dubroff

Not many people say they are addicted to fear: to the surge of adrenaline that surges through mind and body when a person is sure she can't do something but steps off the cliff anyway.  "I love feeling terrified, I love it when I think I can’t pull it off this time," Robbie tells Gavanndra Hodge, who writes. "It is this compulsion that made her — then a 23-year-old unknown — unexpectedly slap Leonardo DiCaprio in the face during her screen test for Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (the slap got her the job)."

Robbie doesn't regret regret any of her movie roles, but she is increasingly aware of the social impact of her characters. ‘It is a weird thing, having a profile,’ she says, becoming quiet for the first (and only) time during our conversation. ‘It is hard because I would never have got to this position if I was trying to censor everything I did. I would never have an impact on anyone if I played perfect characters.’ 

A series of upcoming roles will test her mettle. Robbie plays Elizabeth 1 in Josie Rourke's Mary Queen of Scots, opposite Saoirse Ronan.  She will play the bloodily-murdered Sharon Tate in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with Brad Pitt and DiCaprio. 

In response to a question about her involvement in the #MeToo movement, Robbie reveals an interesting perspective about her personality and an embrace of the collective approach. ‘I never do anything on my own. I don’t see the purpose of doing anything if I don’t do it with my friends. I go mental when I am on my own; my thoughts are so loud it drives me insane.’ On set she says she is never found in her trailer, but always chatting to cast and crew. She made such good friends with the crew on the set of Suite Française that a group of them decided to rent together in Clapham, squeezing seven people into a four-bedroom flat. ‘Those were the best days of my life,’ she says of the nights spent in Clapham’s bars, and the days on the Common with a football and booze. One of those flatmates was husband (Tom) Ackerley, who she married in 2016 in Australia, wearing her mother’s old wedding dress. ‘It was lovely, just chilled, you didn’t have to wear shoes.’