For a while there, it was fashionable to complain that there are no real movie stars anymore, that Hollywood just doesn't make them the way it used to. Then, filmgoers woke up on Christmas morning 2013, and there was Margot Robbie.
Offering up a transfixing big-screen debut as Naomi Lapaglia in The Wolf of Wall Street, the 24-year-old Australian played everything from coquettish to madcap to totally unhinged—in the thickest New York accent this side of the Pulaski Skyway, no less, and while periodically nude. Not only did she hold her own opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, she damn near stole the movie with a career-defining performance that summoned the glamorous ghosts of Grace Kelly and Kim Novak. "Something about her feels timeless," notes John Requa, who, with his writing-directing partner Glenn Ficarra, cast her opposite Will Smith in their upcoming crime caper Focus, out February 27. "We haven't had a star like this in a long time."
After all, it's not every actor who can deliver a line like "Mommy's just so sick and tired of wearing panties..." and walk away with her dignity intact. "With a lot of things in acting," Robbie says of playing Naomi, "if you do it half-assed, it just looks stupid. So I was like, I'm going to go all out and own it."
On her look: "I know that my look is more 'toothpaste model' as opposed to artsy, which sucks because I can play those roles."
On her lifestyle: "I have a normal 24-year-old life. If I were a waitress, I'd probably have the exact same lifestyle. I'd go to the same clubs I go to already, live in the same house with the same housemates, hang out with the same people."
On her love life: "I am officially off the market…I made a conscious decision not to date actors, but not because I hate actors. That's a nasty generalization to make, and that's not the case…People take such an interest in your love life when you have a profile that it puts a lot of stress on a relationship. So two people with profiles, I figure it's just double the amount of scrutiny, and I'd like to avoid that at all costs."