Margot Robbie's success a mix of pluck, luck, skill

There's an incredible amount of dumb luck involved in the making of a successful Hollywood career. Margot Robbie certainly has had a lot of that.

After years of working on the Australian soap opera "Neighbours," she set out for the States and all but instantly landed her big-screen breakthrough, courtesy of no less than Martin Scorsese. But luck doesn't make you a scene-stealer opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Wolf of Wall Street" — that's pure skill.

Robbie, 24, is making the best of both blessings and crafting what promises to be an exciting career, with upcoming roles in a new "Tarzan" film and "Suicide Squad," the much-anticipated, comic-book super-villain flick. In her latest film, "Focus," which opens Friday, Feb. 27, Robbie teams up in a sexy, stylish con-artist flick with another Hollywood giant: Will Smith.

Robbie called recently to discuss the hard work she has put into pursuing meaningful roles and the fun she has with her newly acquired pickpocketing skills.

Question: It's exciting to watch your career blossom the way it has. Usually, the roles for young women starting out in Hollywood are terrible. How have you found such good parts?

Answer: Trust me, it hasn't been easy, and I've been extremely fortunate to get the roles I have, and now I'm in a position where I can afford to say no to a lot of roles, so that makes a massive difference. But I couldn't agree with you more. The most frustrating thing is picking up a script and loving the roles in it except the female ones ... It's really annoying and something I've striven to change in the industry. I've actually just started working on the producing side.

Q: It seems like a lot of actors have started producing their own projects.

A: If there aren't roles you want to play, then you've kind of got to create them. Just started a production company, actually, and our goal is going to be to work with female writers and directors, and female-driven scripts. We want to change things.

Q: You started on soap operas, which get dismissed artistically, but they are a rite of passage for a lot of great actors. What foundational things do you learn working on a soap?

A: It's pretty much boot camp on how to work efficiently on-set. ... Effectively, you have to shoot an episode a day, which in film terms is insane. ... There's no room for error, and that's how you get good, I suppose. You can't not hit your mark, you can't not get your 60 pages of dialogue a day word-perfect so that the people in switchboard can switch between three cameras that are moving around constantly. … That's the most important thing. I've seen actors come in and the only thing they're focused on is the job that they have to do without realizing that it's a big machine and you kind of need to work with everyone to get the take right.

Q: You show off some pretty slick moves in "Focus." Did you have a professional pickpocket trainer?

A: Oh yeah, we had Apollo Robbins, the pickpocket extraordinaire, come in and train us. One of my favorite things about the job is that you get to learn a new skill set with every character you play, and this one happened to be a particularly cool skill set.

Q: What was the best day you had on set?

A: There's a scene when we get to the end of our week grifting at the Super Bowl and we have a party. … That scene wasn't even in the script, we didn't know it was happening. And John (Requa) and Glenn (Ficarra), the directors, set it up and then called us to set … I get there, and all of a sudden everyone pours out, champagne bottles are popping, music is playing, and then they're like, "Everyone have a party and we're just going to film it." It was so much fun, we literally were just mucking around and laughing and dancing. … It was just an impromptu party on set. I loved it.

Q: I'm really excited to see you play Harley Quinn in "Suicide Squad."

A: Oh my God, me too. I don't even know if I'm meant to be talking about this.

Q: This is one of those roles that you could potentially be playing for years. Is that scary?

A: Yeah, that's daunting. You don't need to have commitment issues to be frightened by the fact that you might have just signed 10 years of your life away. … But with her, it's a character I don't think would ever get boring. Ever. So if they did "Suicide Squad One," "Two" and "Three," I would be over the moon about it.

​Reach the reporter at barbara.vandenburgh@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8371. Twitter.com/BabsVan.

More 'Focus'

Find a review of the movie on Thursday, Feb. 26, at movies.azcentral.com.