“Are you surviving in the heat out there?” asked Margot Robbie.
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It hit 105 degrees in Beverly Hills, and as high as 119 degrees in the Valley. More importantly, given her pregnancy, was she?
“Barely,” she laughed, a mini fan in hand.
Robbie, the 34-year-old Australian actress and star of “Barbie,” had just made her baby bump “debut” — as headlines put it this week — at the Los Angeles premiere of “My Old Ass,” produced by her company LuckyChap. She’s expecting her first child with husband and business partner Tom Ackerley.
It was now Tuesday afternoon. Sitting in a presidential suite of a five-star hotel in L.A., wearing head-to-toe Chanel, she had beauty news to share. An ambassador for Chanel since March 2018, Robbie has entered a new era with the French house: she’s the face of Chanel No.5.
“I’ve just always known about Chanel No.5,” Robbie said of her history with the fragrance, which comes in five interpretations. There’s the original Parfum created in 1921; Eau de Toilette, out in 1924; Eau de Parfum in 1986; Eau Premiere in 2008, and L’Eau in 2016, composed by Chanel in-house perfumer Olivier Polge.
Robbie joins spokesmodels that have included Catherine Deneuve, Nicole Kidman and Chanel herself, who appeared in its first advertisement. And of course, there’s Marilyn Monroe, who’s closely connected with the scent after famously naming it in a 1952 Time cover story.
“It’s iconic and an iconic brand,” Robbie went on. “It’s that thing that you always associate with absolute height of luxury. At least that’s how I always felt about Chanel. Now I’m in the Chanel family; I associate with more personal memories and things that I’ve gotten to do.”
Most recently, that was working with Luca Guadagnino, who directed its campaign film. Robbie stars alongside fellow Australian actor Jacob Elordi. “I wanted to work with Luca Guadagnino for so long,” she said.
Guadagnino makes movies about desire, he says in a behind-the-scenes video of the campaign, and how desire can both pull people together and apart.
“He can create that sensual mood in a very cinematic way,” Robbie said of Guadagnino. “I also love that about his films, so I think we definitely played with that [desire]. It was more playful in this, because the tone of it actually is quite light.”
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Robbie and Elordi have a missed rendezvous in the ad. Robbie’s character is seen getting ready for her date with excitement and anticipation. When the two miss one another in a twist of fate, she laughs it off, diving into the ocean and resurfacing in the light.
“The woman that I’m playing in this commercial, she’s very serene,” Robbie continued. “It’s not a palpable hunger. It’s more like there’s a quiet confidence about her and a serenity about her that I also really enjoyed playing.”
It’s a serenity of solitude, with power in her femininity — a clear message behind the film that Robbie brings to life.
“I honestly feel like that’s a big part of growing up,” Robbie said of finding peace with solitude. “For me, in particular, it’s like I need constant distractions to avoid things that I can’t sit with in myself. And I think as I get older, learning to be alone and being happy and content on my own, is such a huge important thing in life. I mean, I think you’re going to waste so much energy and ultimately not be happy if you’re just scrambling to find the thing you want in your external life. If you can’t find it within you, it’s not going to last. It’s going to be there for a second, and then it’s going to be gone. But if you can find it within yourself, you can always be happy. I know that’s a very existential answer to the question, but as I get older, for sure, I spend so much more time introspecting in that way.”
Robbie follows her instincts, she said, when it comes to acting roles at this point in her career: “When I read a character and I can’t really figure them out, that’s when I get excited. I’m like, ‘Oh, I don’t get you. I want to explore that.’”
Moving forward, her focus continues to be on LuckyChap, founded with Ackerley, Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr. LuckyChap is behind some impressive titles including “Barbie,” as well as “Saltburn,” “Promising Young Woman,” “Birds of Prey,” the Netflix series “Maid” and Hulu’s “Dollface.” “My Old Ass” is the latest project, starring Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza.
“We look for original voices,” Robbie said of producing. “Megan Park, who wrote and directed ‘My Old Ass,’ she has such a unique voice. She has a very youthful voice. If you’ve seen her other film ‘The Fallout,’ you’ll also probably agree, she can access the things that a younger generation are thinking or feeling in a way that feels more authentic, I think, than perhaps other people do.”
This fall LuckyChap will present its first musical production, “The Big Gay Jamboree,” with Marla Mindelle of the off-Broadway hit “Titanique.”
“Previews start in September, in a couple weeks,” Robbie said. “Again, a very original voice. The creator and performer, Marla Mindelle, is very original and just a genius talent that we’re excited about.”
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