Our celebrity interview this month is Hollywood actress with Margot Robbie, an Australian force of nature.
Since a blistering breakthrough in The Wolf of Wall Street only four years ago, the 27-year-old from the Gold Coast has ascended to the top of the Hollywood heap in record time. From Suicide Squad to Focus to Tarzan to her first Oscar nomination for I, Tonya, Robbie is an unstoppable force of nature… who still sleeps with her childhood stuffed bunny.
“I’ve had him since I was a baby and he’s called Bunny,” she snorts. “What can I say, I wasn’t a very imaginative child. But I still have him today. I still sleep with him. Every night.” It could be said her bond with Bunny was perfect research for Robbie’s latest roll as cute rabbit Flopsy in the big screen adaptation of Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit.
Taking on the title role, James Corden is the head of the family of carrot nibblers including Robbie’s Flopsy, Elizabeth Debicki’s Mopsy and Daisy Ridley’s Cotton Tail, who join together with our hero as he competes against Domhnall Gleeson’s Farmer McGregor for the affections of a kind animal lover who lives next door [Rose Byrne]. It’s a rip-roaring affair for all the family to enjoy, says the blonde superstar who equates the Rabbit’s family dynamic with that of her own family.
In cheery, fun humour, Robbie chats about her upbringing and her shrewd moves as a child. She also chats about Peter Rabbit, her stalking tendencies, best friend Saoirse Ronan and the Oscars.
Margot lives in LA with husband, Tom Ackerley.
Together: Firstly, the lisp. Beyond cute! Was it your idea and did it come naturally?
Margot Robbie: No, it was in the script, I didn’t add that embellishment to Flopsy, I’d love to be able to take credit. [laughs]
Yea, it just sort of came naturally, it fit with her very cute, nervous energy. Who can resist a little cute rabbit with a lisp? And it fit with her need to stand out beyond her family and assert who she is. And I totally got that because I come from a big family, getting bossed around like Flopsy, I totally went through that. I’m not a middle child technically, though I am the third of four, so I’m in the middle, and I was always vying for attention with my brothers and sisters, and there were no shrinking violets in my family, everybody had a voice. A loud one. My poor mum, I don’t know how she did it. [laughs]
What was it like growing up in your family?
The usual. Bickering and snapping, fighting over the front seat, fighting over clothes, fighting over toys, just fighting as all good families do. But always loving each other. I loved it – I look back at my upbringing and it just makes me smile, we’ve all grown up so close. We’re really tight.
Are you particularly close with one member of your family?
Honestly, there isn’t one over another, we’re all very tight and have individual relationships but like, so unquestionably loyal, would do anything for each other. They’re my best friends. My older brother was like bossing me around, but I looked up to him, but my little brother, he was always like my sidekick so we still have that kind of sidekicky relationship. I think when you come back to your family, it’s like going back. It’s like no time has passed and you all regress, back twenty years, nothing changes. I love that.
And I think my favourite part of playing Flopsy was sort of reliving that dynamic again with Elizabeth and Daisy and James, it felt very close to home for me.
