When Oscar-nominated actress Margot Robbiemoved to Los Angeles in November 2016 toboost her career as a film producer, Hollywood had been suffering a dip for over five years with global ticket sales playing a huge role in keeping the revenues high.
But that did not deter the Australian actress who has weaved her personal dream and career goal into one by launching LuckyChap Entertainment in 2014 to produce more female-focused films and television series, all thanks to her childhood influence from her single mother and Spice Girls.
In fact, the timing was “very interesting” to her as it was around the time then US President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, and just one year before the #metoo movement which followed former film producer Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassments to dozens of actresses were brought to light by the media and eventually to court.
Those who argue that feminism has been around for years and there are more urgent issues to address, think again. Take Robbie, for example. Despite critical acclaim and global recognition over the years, there are still days she is overlooked simply because she is a woman. While it’s true that world has made great strides in women’s rights from the time women were seen as mere family properties without the right to education, many parts of the world are still struggling with several basic human rights.
For avid moviegoers, Robbie is synonymous with quality as well as quirky. Known for her unique choices of roles (both high-profile, mainstream and low-budget independent films) since her breakthrough in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street in 2013, the 33-yearold actress has been continuously rising to prominence, with her stunning performances including unpredictable, yet charming psychopath criminal Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad (2016), controversial American figure skater Tonya Harding in I, Tonya (2017), Queen Elizabeth I in Mary Queen of Scots (2018), and an aspiring actress and junkie in Babylon (2022).
However, it was Barbie (2023), in which the actress co-produced and starred as the title role, that cemented her status as a well-established figure in Hollywood. Barbie is one of Robbie’s masterpieces showcasing not only her acting and producing prowess, but also her talent in mixing feminism, humor, and fun without making the audience feel force-fed. Interestingly, the film also reflected the struggle Robbie has faced over the years: being branded and taken lightly.
Even at LuckyChap, it took a lot of efforts for Robbie to be ‘visible’ in her own company. In the 2022 interview with Vanity Fair, Robbie said it was “so annoying because I have to fight every time” to be a “working producer”. By that, she meant attending meetings, being on set, and getting yelled at by agents. Robbie recalled how she was kept off email chains and not invited to meetings for any project in the early days. Even today, people still turn to her business partners for questions until they are directed to her.
But if you looked closely at the characters she has played and the projects chosen for the company, it would be extremely hard not to take her seriously at all.
The role of family in shaping her feisty, fearless, and vivacious personality was obvious. Born and raised in Queensland, Australia, Robbie was the second youngest of four children and raised by their single mother who separated from their father when Robbie was only five. “Resilient” is the word she has used to sum up women in response to a reporter’s question on feminism and the Weinstein scandal in Vogue Australia’s December 2017 issue.
Then there was Spice Girls, an English girl group whose music was targeted at young and teenage girls with ‘girl power’ message. “The Spice Girls changed everything and dictated my version of second-wave feminism. “It’s like, ‘Oh, my God, they were little sparkly dresses and push-up bras, and then have a girl gang? That’s what I want to be!” she told Rolling Stone in last year’s interview.
Although it sounded like a casual comment made by a little girl, it was clear that the actress doesn’t like being defined. She admitted in a Vogue interview of having an “aversion to being put in a box”. This characteristic has been a huge contribution to her success.
“As soon as you have some success in one type of role, people want you to keep doing that thing, which I think would just be boring,” said the actress who went off-script and slapped Leonardo DiCaprio’s face during the audition for The Wolf of Wall Street after reading the description of the character she played that it was “the hottest blonde ever.” It could be said that hard slap literally launched her career.
This year, she plans to focus more on behind-thescenes work, joking that people must have been sick of the sight of her everywhere last year. Taking a break is out of question. “You do know I’m a producer, right? We don’t get a break.”
With New York’s highest court ruling that overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction for two sex crimes and ordered a new trial, Robbie will surely be more busy and adament with her projects to advocate women’s rights. However, she warned against rushing to open a production company simply to have a free reign in shaping a production or cash in on a trend.
“If it’s not about making films for other people, you kind of put yourself in a bad position to negotiate for yourself if you take this approach. Once you’re a producer on something, you’ve got no leverage, you’ve got no negotiating power…you might have creative control, but you’re going to get paid like shit…It’s also such a lot of work that sometimes just starring in something else is a better thing to do if that’s your goal,” Robbie explained in the January interview with Deadline.
Her next goal is directing. The most crucial thing, says Robbie, is to know what and why you’re doing it. Once you do, go get it. “I’m not good at waiting. If I want something, I can never just sit there,” she says. “I have to make it happen.”
And that should be everyone’s motto too.
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