Margot Robbie covers the December 2022/January 2023 issue of Vanity Fair, styled by Anastasia Barbieri in images by Mario Sorrenti. The two-time Academy Award nominee is set to dazzle in ‘Babylon’ and then as a modern-woman Barbie for the 21st century.

The title of her Vanity Fair convo with Rebecca Ford says it all: Margot Robbie Is Nobody’s Barbie: The Babylon Star on Navigating Hollywood.

The Australian superstar has come a long way since her breakout role in The Wolf of Wall Street, won during her audition, in part, because she had the spontaneous chutzpah to slap Leonardo DiCaprio during the audition.

Robbie plays a fictional Hollywood icon on the rise in Babylon, Paramount’s epic comedy-drama led by Robbie, Brad Pitt, and newcomer Diego Calva. The movie, opening in theaters on December 23, is set during the industry’s wildest time. White men ruled; the money was flowing, a thirst for fame and success knew few boundaries.

Margot Robbie can’t hide her emotional ecstacy is talking about the film: “What you see onscreen is the chaos of making a movie and how fucked it is, but also how it’s just the greatest thing ever,” Robbie says of Babylon. “And, literally, filming it was the exact same thing. Shit was so unhinged and so fun and amazing and just absurd. It was definitely the best experience of my life.”

Babylon’s Nellie LaRoy is arguably the closest character Robbie’s ever played to herself. Silent-era movie icon Clara Bow is the inspiration for LaRoy. Silent no more, Robbie whips out 31 different voices of her playing LaRoy — all recorded on her phone.

Movement coaches are showing up today in many fashion shoots, movies, and music videos. Robbie has a movement coach for Babylon, but the focus is animals that identify with her character. In Robbie’s case, Nellie’s animals were an octopus and a honey badger. No lie!

Robbie opens a black notebook and reads some lines about octopuses: “They’re liquid, they’re playful. Highly intelligent, great survivors, transformative. Can morph into anything.” I can attest that the octopus makes its presence felt in a party scene early on, in which Nellie—clad in a skintight red dress and having just availed herself of some cocaine—moves through the crowd in a writhing, libidinous dance. The honey badger emerges later during fights. Robbie closes her notebook. “I wish I had my character map too,” she says, “because that would make you feel sure that I was a crazy person if you saw that.”

A Dead Barbie Is Revived

After losing both lead actors (Amy Schumer and Anne Hathaway), Barbie was in the dust bin until Margot Robbie picked up the trash. She hired Greta Gerwig to cowrite (with her partner, Noah Baumbach) and direct, deciding on a subversive take on the world’s most famous doll.

“Making an obvious Barbie movie would’ve been extremely easy to do,” says Robbie, “and anything easy to do is probably not worth doing.” Gerwig was impressed by Robbie to the point of being dumbfounded: “Once, I wanted to capture Margot in slow motion but have everything else move fast, so I went up to her and said, ‘Could you move at 48 frames per second, even though we’re shooting in 24 frames per second and everyone else will be moving at regular speed?’ She did some calculation behind her eyes and then fucking did it. She literally moved at a higher frame rate. I don’t know what category that goes into other than magic.”

Margot Robbie now finds herself as a true working producer, with five films in work. The star and her husband Tom Ackerley, who she married in 2016, have a new home in LA and a place in London. They are partners in the production company LuckyChap Entertainment, founded in 2014.

Before saying goodbye in the VF interview, Robbie returns to Nellie LaRoy one more time, saying:

When Babylon wrapped, Robbie was at loose ends: “It was the most physically and emotionally draining character I’ve ever played, by a country mile. She demands so much of you that she left me in pieces.”

Check out the actor’s 2021 British Vogue story about playing Harley Quinn. Shot at California’s Flamingo Estate, it’s an AOC fav and a great look at building a brand around regenerative agriculture principles, which is the mission of Flamingo Estate.

Margot Robbie AOC Archives