200
AS TOLD TO JESSICA MONTAGUE
MARGOT & ME
SARIE KESSLER:“Hi sweetheart, it’s Mum.”
MARGOT ROBBIE:“So Mum, how’s it going?”
SK: “Good, darling, I’m just finishing my smoothie from breakfast.
I wish I had a cup of tea and you were sitting here with me. Okay,
sweetheart, I wanted to talk to you about when you first started
acting. You went down to Melbourne [forNeighbours] and cold-
called the casting agent and did all of that by yourself. Where did
that come from, that courage, the impetuousness to do that?”
MR:“I couldn’t say. I guess it’s a question I’d ask you, because you
know me better than most people. Tell me what you think.”
SK: “Okay, this is my take on it. When you were born you were a very
independent little person – you just did your own thing. Do you
remember Rick [a very close family friend] saying to us: ‘She’s going
to be the first female prime minister of Australia one day.’ He could
see that tenacity, the individuality and courage and the take-the-
whole-world-on attitude that you still have.”
MR:“I think you’re right and it’s funny you mention Rick saying that.
I hope there are a lot of other little girls who have adults say things like
that to them. Not: ‘Are you going to grow up and marry a nice man?’, or:
‘Are you going to grow up and be a princess?’ I know he was saying it
as a joke, but I’m so lucky an adult said that to me as a little girl. It was
a poignant moment where I went: ‘Yeah, why not reach for the stars?’
You’re so nice to say it was independence. I’d say it was a little impatience
on my part. I remember when I was younger if I wanted to do something
I didn’t have the patience to wait to see if someone could help me to
make it happen. It was more: I want thisnowso I’m going to look up the
bus timetable so I can go do that thing. I don’t want to wait until Mum
gets home from work and then see if I can get a lift somewhere.”
SK: “Would you say it was impatience when you went to Italy ...
when you’d been there on a school trip visiting [sister] Anya and
came home with a nose piercing?”
MR:“No, I’d call that stupidity. If I’d known then that I was one day
going to be an actor I definitely would not have got my nose pierced. It’s
so annoying; I see the nose ring hole all the time on screen and I always
think of that time I was a drunk stupid teenager in Italy thinking it
would be hilarious to get my nose pierced.”
SK: “Well, nothing like a little age to give you a different perspective.”
MR:“I don’t know if I’ve grown out of making rash decisions, to
be honest.”
SK: “I don’t know if I’d call them rash, Margot, because you think
about things a lot, too. I really admired the way you set about
deciding how your future was going to unfold. I remember the first
time you told me you were going to be an actor in grade 12.”
MR:“I don’t remember at all.”
SK: “Do you remember doing that movie? You loved it so much and
you came home and said: ‘Mum, you’re not going to like this, but I’ve
decided I’m going to be an actor.” And Margot, my jaw hit the floor
It’s fitting the title of Quentin Tarantino’s new film –Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood– sounds like it belongs in
a fairytale. Since arriving in Los Angeles, Margot Robbie has fulfilled the fantasy of going from pilot-season rookie
to Academy Award-nominated actor, and now also producer, all by 29. We asked Robbie’s mum, Sarie Kessler, to give
her daughter a phone call to reminisce not just about the ride, but some of their favourite memories together.because you were at a really good school. You come from a family with
a medical background and a family with a business background, and
you told me you were going to be anactor. I was stunned.”
MR:“I can’t believe I don’t remember saying that. But when I said that,
did your jaw hit the floor because you were surprised or you thought
this is a bad idea and I should dissuade her?”
SK: “All of that. I thought that it’s hard to be an actor and make
a good living. But I was very concerned you were intending to take
a pathway that, to me, didn’t have a really extensive future. And now
you could say: ‘Mum, you needed more faith in what I can achieve.’
I’m just absolutely so happy for you that you’re in a situation where
you love what you do and you have the independence to do what you
do because you guys started up your own company. Tell me about
that– when did that idea first come about?”
MR:“I can’t remember how much I told you at the time. We talked
about it when I met Tom [Ackerley, Robbie’s husband] and Josey
[McNamara, their co-founder] on Suite Françaisein 2013. We didn’t
articulate our thoughts as much as saying we should start our own
production company called LuckyChap, but it was like: ‘Let’s make
stuff.’ We had that conversation in 2013 and then again when we were
all living together in London in 2014. We kind of started making the
moves and getting the company going at that time.”
SK: “I don’t really understand the industry; I just thought that was
a great idea. I saw it as a means of having longevity – it gives you that
extra ability to be doing what you love, but right on until you’re much
older. But you also said that you wanted to have creative freedom.”
MR:“The conversation really started from Josey and I saying that the
best roles in a script were always the male characters. From there we
said we should make scripts where the female characters are the most
awesome – and this was all before it became a popular thing to say
about female-focussed projects. The movement hadn’t really started at
that point, but after it did it bolstered our confidence in what we were
doing and also [changed] people’s appetite for those sorts of projects, so
it really timed out perfectly.”
SK: “It did. You were ahead of your time, sweetie. Do you remember
what you did with your first acting pay cheque?”
MR:“I spent it on paying you back, Mum. Don’t you remember?”
SK: “No, I do – that would be right.”
MR:“I was so in debt by the end of grade 12. I had everything I owed you
written on a piece of paper and every time I got a pay cheque I paid off
my debt, but then I kept the piece of paper because it was so satisfying at
the end to know I’d paid it all back. And then I started saving. And then
I probably started going out and I don’t know ... went to the movies.”
SK: “When we’re talking about you getting into acting, I really didn’t
see the writing on the wall, but I should have, because even as a little
child you were such a performer. I just thought you were a bit
precocious. I remember your first preschool book character day. All