If there was ever a approach to inform Margot Robbie is in her aspect again house, it’s by means of her hair.
Tousled, understated, and in lengthy beachy waves, the 32-year-old shed her usually-polished Hollywood pink carpet tresses for one thing extra … her.
Even in Versace couture on the Australian premiere of Babylon, Robbie continued her relaxed ’do – and she or he did the identical at our interview the next day, the place she sported a vanilla-coloured silk swimsuit with bell-shaped cuffs, teamed with gold jewelry.
Yes, Robbie is a big actress however in actual life, she is nothing like her newest character in Babylon – as Nellie LaRoy, a chaotic, drug-addicted Nineteen Twenties starlet making an attempt to make it large in Hollywood. LaRoy needed all of it, Robbie has it already.
“She’s a very physically, emotionally draining kind of character to play,” Robbie stated, of the position.
Robbie’s secret to sustaining her stamina? Sugar. “Just on a never-ending sugar high, really, eating Skittles.
“To be honest, it wasn’t that hard to keep energy levels up on a film set like Babylon because you could feed off everyone else’s energy, it wasn’t like doing – what I imagine – a very, like, blue screen or CGI-heavy film would be, where you have not that much to go off.
“Doing a party scene, you can’t help feed off the energy of the room.”
Robbie is referring to a very memorable scene in Babylon, that includes intercourse and coke-fuelled debauchery – and on set, Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle (of La La Land fame) created a wild setting with no home windows or sense of time.
“(Chazelle) transports everyone in that scene to what you’re doing,” Robbie stated, of capturing.
“You had music playing all the time and the general chaos of a film set is pretty energising in itself,” she stated, including: “When we were getting really tired, they’d put on Firestarter (by The Prodigy) and we’d be like, ‘ah! We’ve got to go again.’”
“You don’t become a star – you either are, or you ain’t,” Robbie says as Nellie, in considered one of Babylon’s opening scenes.
But Nellie finds the celebrity she was so desperately chasing, the cruel actuality of it is extremely completely different to her fantasy. And Robbie admits the truth of Hollywood isn’t at all times what you’d think about.
“There are so many things where it differs from what you ever imagined,” Gold Coast-raised Robbie stated.
“When you’re making a movie, you’re working with hundreds of people and it’s like going on summer camp – and you all become so close. And you’re all in it together and there’s something really, I don’t known fulfilling and good for your soul about having a shared objective with a group of strangers.
“You all want the same thing and you’re all working together to achieve a common goal, and that’s what making a movie is – it’s hundreds of people doing what they do, really well, and doing it together and working together to make something special. I think that’s the biggest difference, especially for people who aren’t in this industry might not realise just how many people it takes to make a movie.”
Robbie and her co-star Diego Calva – who joined her in Sydney this week – grew to become shut buddies in the course of the Babylon shoot, with Calva, 30, transferring into the house Robbie shares together with her husband, Tom Ackerley.
“We were in the middle of shooting and I was getting like lonely, we were in that tricky spot and it was really helpful,” Calva says.
Robbie chimes in: “And it was helpful for me because Diego and I pretty much co-parented my pitbull … he loves my dog, my dog loves him”.
“So to like share the load it was really nice to have a roommate to help me take care of Belle.
“I’m a little bit jealous because she definitely loves Diego more than me.”
While the pair discover the darker facet of Hollywood in Babylon – together with racism and sexism – Robbie says the truth of being a modern-day actor could be very completely different. For one, Robbie isn’t simply an actor, she is constructing a fully-fledged Hollywood empire in her personal proper through her manufacturing firm LuckyChap Entertainment, together with the upcoming Barbie film, by which she stars and is an government producer.
“I think we’re very fortunate to exist in a very different place now. Obviously, definitely far from perfect but back then, it was just … pretty horrible (in the 1920s),” Robbie stated.
“On the flip side, there were tonnes of female directors back then. In some ways, we’ve taken steps back and other ways, taken steps forward,” she added.
“A female director was totally common place at that time. Once the movies became a commodity, that’s when the dudes came in and pushed the women out. But we’re coming back around again.”
Babylon is out nationally on Thursday. Read extra from Stellar right here.
