Margot Robbie can pull off any hair color, right? I used to think she should just stick to blonde, but no – she’s stunning as a caramel-brunette on this British Vogue cover. Margot is promoting The Suicide Squad, which is out on August 6th. She was interviewed at her LA home, but she lives wherever – I think she has a crash pad in London and somewhere in Europe, plus she still has family in Australia. She’s happily married to Tom Ackerley, her producing partner on LuckyChap (their production company) and she’s only 31 years old. She’s fashioned such an interesting career for herself as an actress/producer, and she confesses in this interview that of course she wants to try directing. Some highlights:

She loves working on the Suicide Squad movies: “Those scenes where everything’s exploding around you, and you make it just in time, those massive epic war hero runs? Those movie moments? Girls never get those. Girls never get those.”

Her migraines: “I could be in a pitch black room and if someone lit a match I’d be, like, blinded. So being on set is the worst place – I take my medication, sit in the trailer and ask them to do my make-up in the dark.”

Working on Aussie soap opera Neighbours as a teen: “But I’d been there for months before I realised that nobody else had other jobs on the side.” She was making sandwiches in Subway at the time. “And I was like, ‘You’re doing acting full-time? That’s possible? OK, wicked, I’m going to do that.’ It was an epiphany.”

The first Suicide Squad movie: “It’s just like a sleepover! There are explosions and guns firing. And even though they’re blanks, your body starts reacting as if it’s real, your adrenaline’s through the roof.” At home at night she often finds it hard to sleep: “Because, well, my body thinks it’s just been in a war zone.”

She finds Harley Quinn hard to shake: “Harley sticks around. Even on a weekend when I’m out with friends, sometimes she pops up and I’ll be like, ‘Right then, I’m gonna put a lid on that.’”

She wants more women in action films: “From a business or statistical standpoint, those are the high-paying jobs. So I really want to advocate for women writing big blockbuster action films. And then also, the perception that women aren’t interested in action is ridiculous. Plus, they’re really, really fun.”

She’s considering slowing down. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m in my thirties now, or because life took… a very strange turn. Over Covid, I was home for longer than I’ve ever stayed anywhere. I’ve been moving at a million miles an hour for as long as I can remember.” What’s that like? “It can feel a little scary sometimes. But now I finally feel like it’s OK to… sit still? Or even sit this one out. That’s a feeling I haven’t had before.”

She makes friends with everyone on set: “Often people ask, ‘What was it like working with so-and-so?’, you know, a fellow actor. And I’m like, ‘Well, I worked with 300 people on this movie. Two of them were actors.’”

She was offered the lead in Promising Young Woman, but decided to just produce the film: “I have a real aversion to being put in a box. The minute someone sums me up in two words… I want to show them I’m the exact opposite. 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.”

[From British Vogue]

I do think that she’s really like this – “Well, I worked with 300 people on this movie. Two of them were actors.” It comes across as kind of performatively “cool girl,” but as I said, I think she’s genuinely like that. She fell in love with Ackerley when he was the third assistant director. She parties with the crew on her films. She goes on road trips and checks out music festivals with non-famous people. Just because Hollywood decided that she’s a bombshell doesn’t mean she acts that way. It sounds like the pandemic changed her though, with the combination of being in her 30s now. It is okay to slow down! It’s okay to sit out some of this stuff.

Covers courtesy of British Vogue.