From unbeliever to millionaire: how Margot Robbie's self-confessed ambition has made her the year's highest-paid actress

For Margot Robbie there is no better motivation than disbelief.

As disbelieving as ambitious, the Australian interpreter could not believe her eyes when she saw herself for the first time in New York's Times Square in front of a giant advertisement in which she appeared as part of the

series .

"I still have the photo," she told this newspaper a couple of years ago, longing for a time when she was still nobody.

After she doubted that she was "the most attractive blonde in the world" as the script for

(2013), the Martin Scorsese movie that put her on the map.

Still she continued to hesitate.

“I remember telling a friend that: 'I haven't worked for six weeks, I'm sure there's nothing else,'” she added, laughing at her doubts.

magazine

, Margot Robbie has just become the highest paid actress of the year thanks to a salary of 12.5 million dollars (or euros, now that they are at the par) for her work on the upcoming movie

.

It must be specified that Robbie, 32, is the highest paid actress because, judging by the 17 men who precede her -with salaries ranging from Tom Cruise's 100 million dollars for his

to the also 12 .5

million dollars from Ryan Gosling for the same

that Robbie stars in—, the wage parity thing in Hollywood is far from being a close reality.

But if we talk about female performances, she is ahead of Millie Bobby Brown (who earned $10 million this year for her return to the

series ), Emily Blunt (who

earned $4 million for

), Jamie Lee Curtis ($3.5 million for

) and Anya Taylor-Joy's $1.8 million for

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Robbie's mistrust is not at odds with his worth.

And if she doesn't want to see it, the others are there to remind her.

Like Scorsese, who in addition to comparing her to Carole Lombard, Joan Crawford and Ida Lupino for her humor, her resilience and the emotions she is capable of showing on camera, respectively, described the Australian in her day as someone “with a surprising audacity and leaves a mark.

For daring, the one she showed in the role in

, where she surprise-slapped Leonardo DiCaprio in the middle of the audition.

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling during the filming of 'Barbie', from director Greta Gerwig, in California in June 2022. MEGA (GC Images)

In her next job with DiCaprio, she showed the same predisposition, in this case with director Quentin Tarantino, to whom she sent a letter, like someone who doesn't want the thing, letting him know how much she admired his cinema and especially

( 1993), which the actress described as her favorite film.

Tarantino already had the interpreter of

on the head to revive the memory of Sharon Tate in

(2019),

but the letter surely did not hurt

“Margot has a visual vibrancy and personal qualities that you don't see every day.

She has what it takes”, she summed up after directing Tarantino to EL PAÍS about her choice.

What Robbie has is a hunger for cinema since he started working on the series

a classic of Australian television through which most of the actors in that country have passed and which now, after 9,000 episodes and 37 years on the air, comes to an end.

“Of course I am ambitious.

My career is my motivation.

I came to the United States with a plan and I keep looking forward, "he acknowledged in the interview with this medium.

She came to him as a child, from that Queensland (Australia) in which Margot Elise Robbie grew up and where she already pointed out ways of a businessman and

when she started selling her brother's used toys on the sidewalk of the house her.

Now she jokes about all of it, but something of that girl is still alive in her characters, and that she has them of all kinds: from those semi-unknown movies like the

or

to the great successes within the superhero genre playing Harley Quinn twice (

and

) and her two Oscar nominations with

(2018) or

(2020).

“It is true that many of the women I have played share my ambition.

And that this industry is tough.

But it is also true that I am full of doubts like anyone.

You never know how what you do will end up being, ”she summed up then.

Margot Robbie and her husband, Tom Ackerley, at 'Vanity Fair' magazine's Oscar party in March 2018. Jon Kopaloff (WireImage)

Perhaps for this reason, seeking greater control over his work or the content of his films, since 2014 there has been that other face of Robbie called LuckyChap Entertainment.

It is about her production company, which she founded together with her husband, the British director Tom Ackerley, and other friends and with which she promotes content not only as her own vehicle but for other actresses, as was the case of

which, starring Carey Mulligan, led its director, Emerald Fennell, to an Oscar for the screenplay of this black comedy about a young woman seeking revenge.

“Margot is an extraordinary person.

That is why she is doing so well as a producer, someone determined to do different things and raise the voices of women," the director and screenwriter summarized to EL PAÍS, using the words "interesting", "strange", "intelligent" and " delicious”, as well as “great support”, to describe her benefactor.

The terms that her husband would use for her are unknown, because despite the six years they have been married, hardly anything is known about them.

That they met when Ackerley, also 32, was working as an assistant director on one of Robbie's

most

That they went to live together as soon as they attended their first gala at the Golden Globes with

and that they are still there, not only as a couple but as co-workers.

And that they have a long way to go, judging by the list of premieres that the interpreter accumulates.

Before that

is pending

;

, where she will play silent film star Clara Bow opposite Damien Chazelle;

and the

that Wes Anderson has shot in Spain.

In addition, she awaits a new reincarnation of the

saga , the war drama

with Matthew Schoenaerts, another version of

that she wants to produce and even a new incarnation of the

in which he would replace Jack Sparrow himself.

Obviously, now Margot Robbie can have no doubts about her career.

Nor time to count the money.