Photo by Samir Hussein/WireImage
Margot Robbie Remains ‘Humble’ and ‘Down to Earth’ Amid A-List ‘Barbie’ Stardom
Margot Robbie is having a moment. Barbie, which she stars in and produced, has raked in $1 billion and counting at the box office, making the 33-year-old beauty — who’s set to take home $50 million in salary and bonuses — the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. And there’s already talk of a sequel. “The success of Barbie has solidified Margot’s A-list status,” a source exclusively tells Life & Style. “She’s the biggest star on the planet.”
She’s come a long way since her days of working odd jobs and taking bit parts in her native Australia before moving to Los Angeles at 20. But according to the insider, Margot’s newfound fortune and fame hasn’t gone to her head. “She’s never been one to seek out attention,” says the insider, noting that Margot and her assistant director husband of six years, Tom Ackerley, also 33, prefer to remain under the radar. “Tom’s also very understated and humble. They’re still the same down-to-earth people they’ve always been.”
Margot landed her first big role on the Australian soap Neighbours when she was 17. She was still making sandwiches at Subway to make ends meet. is having a moment. “I’d been there for months before I realized that nobody else had other jobs on the side,” she’s said. “I was like, ‘You’re doing acting full-time? That’s possible?’” When she moved to Hollywood, she kept hustling. “The ultimate goal was to unpack my bags and stay there,” she revealed, “but to do that you had to earn a living.” She babysat and took gigs at a surf shop, grocery store and a pharmacy. “Then I was a waitress and a cleaner,” she added.
In 2013, she landed a role opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. The film was a hit, but Margot still insisted on moving into a three-bedroom house with six friends (including her then–future husband) in London.
“We had to fit quite a few people into a small place,” she later said. Even after she and Tom became a couple, she added, they stayed in the cramped house. “Those were the best days of my life.” It was only after they wed, in 2016, that their housemates gently kicked them out. “Our roommates told us: ‘You guys had a wedding. You have to live on your own now.’ It honestly hadn’t occurred to us,” Margot recently recalled. “We were, like, ‘What? Just the two of us?’” They eventually ventured out on their own but Margot admitted they missed “having heaps of people around.”
Success has brought the duo closer. “She trusts him one hundred percent,” says the insider. It helps that the couple started their own production company, LuckyChap, in 2014, focusing on getting women’s voices heard. “Tom’s not threatened by Margot’s success and would never hold her back,” says the insider. “He’s always pushing her to be herself and tells people how he hit the jackpot.” Fiercely protective of their bond, the actress steers talk away from her husband in interviews. Her parents’ separation when she was 5 years old and the fact that her dad was out of the picture for most of her life made her even more determined to make her marriage to Tom last, says the insider. “She feels very grateful to have found him.”
Margot has been equally mum on the subject of motherhood. “I got married and the first question in almost every interview is ‘Babies? When are you having one?’ I’m so angry that there’s this social contract,” she’s griped. “‘You’re married, now have a baby.’ Don’t presume. I’ll do what I’m going to do.”
The insider says she and Tom do hope to have kids someday — and that Margot doesn’t believe she’ll regret waiting. “They’ve said it’ll happen when it’s meant to,” says the insider. “Margot isn’t fazed by the pressure.”
The future looks bright all around. With their new windfall, says the insider, Margot and Tom are looking to buy a house in his native U.K. “That’s important for Tom because he still has a lot of family and friends back there,” says the insider. They want to keep roots in Australia and in New York City as well. Adds the insider: “It wasn’t long ago that they were living very modestly, and now they have their pick of mansions.” (They currently own three properties, and Margot recently revealed she’d paid off her mother’s house: “Everything I owed my mom, I had it written down. And then one day, when I made enough money, I just paid that whole mortgage off completely.”)
The I, Tonya star has her pick when it comes to her next project. “Margot and Tom are in a position where they can get almost anything they want made,” reveals the insider. “One of the most refreshing things about Margot and Tom is that they’re not affected by their success,” adds the insider. “They act like the same people who shared a flat with a bunch of roommates. They don’t take anything for granted.”
