THE EVENING STANDARD – Margot Robbie has revealed details of her hen party – and how her love of the Harry Potter novels gave the bash an unusual twist.
The Australian star, who was nominated for an Oscar last year for I, Tonya, married British assistant director Tom Ackerley in December 2016.
Her hen do was held at a friend’s house in Australia, with 45 guests including old schoolmates who were nicknamed “The Heckers”, friends from her days in Neighbours, and former Clapham housemates — made up of the crew from her movie Suite Française.
Her husband, whom she met on that set, also lived in the houseshare. She told ES Magazine: “There are 16 of us [in The Heckers], we have been called that since we were at school.
“[The Clapham crowd] are a rowdy bunch, too, and the combination was explosive. They hired a Harry Potter-themed stripper for me; he had all the Harry Potter phrases and innuendoes. I was so touched, it was really such a thoughtful thing to do. They know me so well.”
Robbie, 28, whose latest movie is the noir thriller Terminal, also told how she turns to J K Rowling’s books to help her sleep at night and has been reading them on a loop since she was eight.
“Right now I am on the fifth book. I know what’s coming next when I turn the page,” she said. “I can’t meditate and this is what I have to do to fall asleep. Vaughn [Stein, the director of Terminal] told me that if you have trouble sleeping, which I do, you should read something you’re familiar with to calm you.
“If I read something new before I go to bed, my brain goes 1,000 miles an a hour. Reading Harry Potter makes me happy and calms me. I read for about an hour to two hours every night. My husband hates it.”
Robbie fought for her first role, in Neighbours, and said she had to make it on her own as it wasn’t an obvious career growing up in Gold Coast.
“No one thought I’d be an actress because where I grew up it wasn’t a job you could do. I never met anyone who’d so much as made a cup of coffee on a film set.”
During her time playing Donna Freedman on Neighbours she studied with a voice coach to perfect her American accent and try to make her way in Hollywood. Roles in The Wolf Of Wall Street and Suicide Squad followed.
Robbie, who will play Elizabeth I in film Mary Queen of Scots, has backed the #MeToo movement. She said: “Of course I knew the problem existed. I just hadn’t viewed it as a problem we were allowed to be angry about.
“Because no one spoke about it, no one said, ‘I am not putting up with this any more.’ It wasn’t called a problem, it was called a fact of life. That is such a terrible mindset. If we just accept things like sexual harassment as a fact of life, it doesn’t get fixed.” (source)
