Margot Robbie

Margot Robbie is everywhere, all at once. The actor leads Damien Chazelle's old Hollywood epic Babylon, which is out 20 January, alongside Brad Pitt and ...

The part is, famously, quite small in this retelling of the Manson murders (and many of her scenes were cut) but Robbie’s screentime is reflective of her ability to do a lot with a little. In this historical drama, she takes on the role of Elizabeth I as she grapples with the threat of her cousin Mary (Saoirse Ronan). Though it’s hard to know who wanted a revisionist take on Tonya Harding (besides the subject herself), Robbie’s performance as the disgraced figure skater is undeniable. It does show a meeting between the two women (which very probably, almost definitely never happened), and actually, that is the best part of the film. The star power is there, as is a bulletproof premise: Nicky (Smith) is a con artist training newbie Jess (Robbie). Shattering any image of a trophy wife, Robbie’s performance is the perfect foil to all the lechery brought by Belfort and his associates. The film isn’t always a success – though the narrative about slavery is quite compelling – but it’s enjoyable enough to watch a redheaded Robbie go up against Christoph Waltz (inevitably playing a villain). In Damien Chazelle’s third feature film – a dizzying, cocaine-fuelled ode to 1920s Hollywood – she plays Nellie LaRoy, an actress who struggles with the transition from silent film to talkies. The results are mixed – the film is more interesting as a document about #MeToo than anything else – but Robbie shines. Robbie’s standalone feature, Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey, has the best cast (and attitude), but even then, her performance as Harley you can probably catch in a YouTube highlights reel. Russell joint which teamed the actress up with a cast including John David Washington, Rami Malek, Anya Taylor-Joy, Taylor Swift (sure!), Christian Bale and Robert De Niro. The film – both twisty and exhausting – was a bomb, but Robbie isn’t half bad; her chemistry with Bale and Washington is breezy enough.