Margot Robbie on Being a Harry Potter Nerd and Not Taking Jared Leto’s Scent Suggestions

While Vanity Fair may find Margot Robbie “too fresh to be pegged,” she’s pretty willing to do it herself — at least when it comes to Harry Potter. “I manipulated the answers,” she said, when I ask the admitted Potter nerd (on Jimmy Kimmel, she showed a photo of herself at 13 with glasses, braces, and holding a cup of tea and a Harry Potter book), whether she’s ever taken a Sorting Hat quiz. During a press day from London as the new face of deep Euphoria Calvin Klein, I forgot to ask Robbie what her patronus would be, but I did find out where she thinks the Sorting Hat would place her, the weird smell Jared Leto thought the Joker would have, and her thoughts on not putting down other women.

Did you play a specific character in the deep Euphoria shoot?
That was the tricky part. With any kind of photo shoot or campaign, they want to see you be yourself, but what I do at work is to play someone else. Photo shoots are terrifying. Photographers are like, “Just show me you!” and I’m like, “Oh, me? I wouldn’t be doing this. I wouldn’t be sprawled out on a couch like this. I would be in a tracksuit.”

But Francis Lawrence, a film director, did the campaign, so it was so much easier for me to sit down with him and say, “Okay, so here’s the concept. This is where you are. This is what you’re thinking.” We’re blurring the lines between fantasy and reality so you can associate things with your own experiences and you can kind of fabricate the world you’re in at the same time.

What was your first scent memory?
I remember being a kid and seeing my mom’s perfumes lined up on the bathroom bench. I was definitely aware that only older women — grown-up women — wore perfume. I was so thrilled at the idea that I was going to be grown up and be able to wear perfume, too. Whenever I smell my mum, I feel like a little kid again.
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