Margot Robbie emerged as a household name thanks to high-profile roles like Naomi Lapaglia in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street and Dr. Harleen Quinzel, AKA Harley Quinn, in Suicide Squad.

But when you delve into Robbie’s history, you’ll see she lived quite an exciting life before she ever hit the big screen. While she’s a newer face in the United States, this talented actress worked for more than a decade in her home country of Australia.

Fun facts about Margot Robbie include more than just her meteoric rise in Hollywood. Many fans may already know much about her work as Tonya Harding or Queen Elizabeth, but they may not know how long it took Robbie to achieve this success, or what it’s cost her along the way.

Read on to see if you are as much of a fan as you thought you were and, with any luck, learn something new about this amazingly talented woman from Queensland, Australia.

Her Family Wanted Her To Quit Acting

Breaking into acting is a difficult task. So, when Robbie decided to get into the business, her family expressed less support than she might have hoped.

She told Vogue: “My family has no connection to the entertainment industry whatsoever, so when I started acting, everyone was like, ‘That’s fun, but when are you going to actually get a real job?’ And that went on for years.”

Eventually, Robbie’s family came around, but it took a few years and some impressive success to get them on board.

Acting Wasn’t Her Goal Until It Became A Reality

Robbie’s road to stardom wasn’t exactly glamorous. According to Harper’s Bazaar, Robbie landed a role in a low-budget B-movie at 16.

At the time, she was working three jobs and didn’t think acting would ever be her career. But that early film role inspired her to move to Melbourne at 17, where she slept on a stranger’s couch and went after more auditions.

Now that Robbie has established herself, her early work is somewhat embarrassing to her, and she admits to never even having seen her first couple of films.

She Landed Her First Role As A Teenager – Without An Agent

At just 16 years old, Robbie starred in the Australian film I.C.U. According to an interview she did with the website for Neighbours, the Australian soap opera she starred in, she found out about the audition through a friend who was involved in the film. She had no representation at the time she secured the role.

She Hired Security After Receiving Threats For ‘Suicide Squad’

Fame comes with many perks, but it also has its downfalls, especially in the comic book world, where fans are known to harass film stars and producers if they feel their product fails to be “faithful” to the source material. Robbie learned this the hard way with Suicide Squad.

Because of her role as the divisive Harley Quinn, Robbie dealt with security concerns, resulting in her hiring a professional firm to ensure her safety.

She told the Hollywood Reporter that the cost of hiring security means she must take on big-budget, blockbuster films:

[It’s] like, “Okay, that’s a different kind of career.” Because then you need to always do a job that can financially support that lifestyle; you can’t just do indie films for the rest of your life because that film back there changed everything and now you have to be able to afford security.

I just wish someone had explained a lot of those things to me early on. I wouldn’t have resented the position I found myself in because I would’ve known what I was getting myself into.

Her Early Career Included Acting In Commercials

Like many young actors working to make their mark on the industry, Robbie appeared in commercials for a couple of years while she established herself.

During this time, she promoted products like Nivea and made guest appearances on television shows including The Elephant Princess and City Homicide.

Since becoming a household name, Robbie hasn’t left her work in advertisements behind. She now appears in commercials for brands like Calvin Klein, Nissan, and Chanel.

In 2016, Robbie launched her production company, LuckyChap Entertainment. In 2017, Deadline reported that the company closed a deal with Warner Bros. Television to bring the series Shattered Glass to NBC and Dollface to Hulu.

LuckyChap was the principal production company and financier for Robbie’s film I, Tonya in 2017. That film made more than $53 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo – a financial success for the company. The awards buzz Robbie and her castmates garnered further raised its critical profile.

Her Big Break Came On A Soap Opera

Most people think of Robbie as a film star, but her earliest success didn’t come from making movies – it came from her work on the Australian soap opera Neighbours.

Robbie recalls bombarding the production with calls for auditions. She finally learned she landed a part while on vacation in Canada. Robbie started filming Neighbours as soon as she returned to Australia.

When she was cast to play Donna Freedman on the series in June 2008, her character was meant to only appear in a guest role. Before long, Robbie advanced to the main cast, where she remained until 2011.

A Failed TV Show May Have Helped Her Career

When Robbie left Neighbours in 2011, she did so with the intention of moving to Hollywood to build her career as an international actress.

When she arrived, Robbie initially auditioned for a role in a Charlie’s Angels television series, but she didn’t get the part. Instead, Sony, which was producing Charlie’s Angels, offered her a role in another series: Pan Am.

Pan Am fared well with critics, and audiences seemed to like it, but not enough for the ratings to prove its worth to Sony Pictures Television.

The show was canceled after one season, which left Robbie looking for work elsewhere. But this turned out to be a good thing for her career, as it freed her up to play Naomi Lapaglia in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Her Films Have Grossed Nearly $1 Billion

From the start of her career through 2018, Robbie’s films pulled in an estimated $808 million, a considerable amount of money in any industry.

Her best-performing movie, Suicide Squad, earned around $325 million, while her worst-performing film, Z for Zachariah, made $121,461.

She’s Happily Married

Robbie met Tom Ackerley on the set of the film Suite Française in 2013, where he worked as the assistant director. The couple married three years later at a private ceremony in Byron Bay, Australia, according to the Gold Coast Bulletin.

Elle reports the pair formerly lived in London with a few friends, but have since moved to Los Angeles.

She’s An Accent Master

A lot of actors struggle to pull off a convincing accent. But for The Wolf of Wall Street, Robbie more than just swapped her natural Australian accent for an American one – she earned praise from Vanity Fair for her convincing performance as a Brooklynite.

Robbie’s work in other films and television shows further demonstrates her apparent ability to take on an accent.

Robbie’s memorable roles in movies like Suicide Squad make it seem as if she’s the leading lady, but that film starred a number of impressive actors all sharing the spotlight in an ensemble cast. Things changed when she took on the role of Tonya Harding.

Playing Harding in I, Tonya, the biopic about the Olympic ice skater, marked a new achievement in Robbie’s career. As she told The Guardian, she even called her mother to say, “Mum, I’m the main part.”

Before I, Tonya, Robbie felt hesitant to take on a leading role – “All the weight of the film rests on your shoulders,” she explained. But her performance demonstrated she could meet the challenge.

She Had An Unflattering Childhood Nickname

When it comes to nicknames for children, people usually choose something adorable or, at the very least, affectionate. For Robbie, her friends and family settled on calling her “Maggot” – an unconventional nickname, but perhaps understandable for its closeness to “Margot.”

Biography reports that Robbie grew up on a farm in Gold Coast, Queensland, and her family consists of some interesting and talented people.

Her parents divorced when she was young; she doesn’t speak much with her father. Her mother, a physiotherapist, raised Robbie and her three siblings.