SHE is the blonde bombshell who has twice been nominated for an Oscar and is one of the world’s highest paid actresses.
But Margot Robbie admits she is still terrified of auditions and once got in such a flap that she ended up “off her head” on a powerful prescription drug.
The Hollywood A-lister opened up about her ordeal as she talked about settling down with her British husband, and her embarrassing gaffes in front of other celebrities.
Margot, 31, said: “Auditions terrify me. I get nervous doing the early reads, even when I know that I’ve already got the part.
“I still find that nerve-racking. I find them really scary.”
The Australian recalled: “Oh my God, I had a terrible audition once. It’s kind of a long story.
“In America, obviously, the name of medications is different to what they are in Australia.
“I had this really small day surgery thing the day before a big audition that I really wanted the role for, and I was in so much pain. I was at my friend’s house and he’d just had root canal treatment.
“I was like, ‘I’m in so much pain but I’ve got this audition tomorrow’. And he was like, ‘Oh well, I’ve got painkillers from the root canal. Take them when you wake up before your audition and you’ll be fine’.
“And I was like, ‘OK, thank you so much’.
“And he said, ‘Here, take two’. And when he said, ‘Take two’ I thought he meant to take two as the dosage, but he really meant to take two just in case I needed another one later.
“Anyway, I woke up and I was getting ready for this audition, didn’t get time to eat breakfast so, on an empty stomach, I had two. I’m driving and halfway there I was suddenly like, ‘Oh my God, what a lovely day it is!’
“I’ve got one hand out the window. I was off my head. It was a terrible audition, I’m sure!
‘I THINK I’M HIGH’
“I remember curling up on the couch and the whole thing was terrible.
“I was going for my driving test right afterwards to get my American licence and I was like, ‘I am not OK, I cannot do a driver’s test’.
“Fortunately my friend worked at Sony, which is where I was doing the audition, and I ran to her office and was like, ‘Can you give me food or something? I think I’m high. I’m not sure but I think I’m high, help me’. It was hilarious.”
Margot says her audition phobia is a source of fun for her husband Tom Ackerley, who she met on a film set.
Tom, 31, from Surrey, is a film producer and the couple married in Byron Bay, Australia, in 2016.
In 2014 they co-founded production company LuckyChap Entertainment, which has since produced several Oscar-nominated films, as well as US comedy TV series Dollface.
Margot revealed: “I haven’t just had one specific incident or time in my life where I’m like, ‘That’s it, I’m calling it quits’ — I’ve had many.
“In fact, in the week leading up to the first day of playing any character — every character I’ve ever played — I have a huge crisis of faith and convince myself that I’m a terrible actor, and I’m not actually any good at this job, and that I don’t know the character, I’ll never be able to pull it off.
“And my husband’s like, ‘OK, you know you say this every single time’. And I say, ‘It’s different this time. This time I really can’t do it!’
“And then the first day is done and I’m like, ‘I think I can do this’. And he’s like, ‘OK cool’.”
She adds: “He’s a very patient man. So it’s not one particular time but many times — every time.”
Margot is now back on the big screen, reprising her role as psychotic Harley Quinn in the second outing of The Suicide Squad.
It is a part she keeps threatening to quit due to the demanding nature of the role, but she reveals: “I loved played Harley again. I miss her when I’m not playing her, I’m exhausted when I am playing her but I’m always just keen to do it again.
“So it was so nice to be back on set and be Harley again. I definitely feel like she becomes second nature, she kind of takes over at some point and I go on autopilot and she does her thing.”
And Margot has described how the cast did everything they could to turn the movie into a hit.
She said: “I don’t want to give it away, but when you watch the movie the toughest scene is probably about half-way through.
“There’s an insane sequence that Harley does which was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever shot on screen.
“We shot it in about four days and I remember looking at the schedule and being like, ‘Oh my God, we’re not going to be able to do this, this is going to be impossible’. We did it but it was hard and I was beat up by the end.
“But the whole sequence is really cool. When you see the movie, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.”
START IN NEIGHBOURS
Margot started her career in Neighbours in Oz but moved to LA and won her breakout role when she was picked to play Leonardo DiCaprio’s wife in 2013’s The Wolf Of Wall Street.
She won acclaim playing Elizabeth I in 2018 period drama Mary Queen Of Scots and as Sharon Tate in 2019’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
She has been nominated for an Oscar twice, first for playing shamed US ice skater Tonya Harding in 2017’s I, Tonya, then for playing a fictional Fox News employee in Bombshell in 2019.
Margot says her meteoric rise has left her feeling a little exhausted — and hints that she is eyeing a career break.
She said: “The busier we are, the faster the time flies and I’ve always been very busy since I was ten, 20. But now, at 30, I try to focus on the things I want to really devote time to.
“But if it’s something I really want to do, I never feel like wasting a minute. I don’t know if it’s because I’m in my thirties now, or because life took a very strange turn due to Covid.
“With lockdowns, I was at home for longer than I’ve ever stayed anywhere.
“I’ve been moving at a million miles an hour for as long as I can remember.”
So what’s that like? “It can feel a little scary sometimes. But now I finally feel like it’s OK to . . . sit still. Or even sit this one out. That’s a feeling I haven’t had before.”
