Oscar nominee Margot Robbie on her jokes with Prince Harry from prank-calling to goofy photos
MARGOT ROBBIE may be up for an Oscar but she already has a spectacular claim to fame under her belt – she once prank-called Prince Harry.
She got his number from pal Cara Delevingne, who she blames for inciting her.
It happened when the pair found themselves with spare time while co-starring in a movie and model Cara was bored.
Speaking for the first time about the incident, Margot told The Sun on Sunday: “Cara knows Harry and while we were filming Suicide Squad she was like, ‘Let’s prank-call him’.
“I said, ‘We can’t prank-call royalty’, but anyway we did — and he was so cool with it.”
The actress, 27, does not elaborate on the details, but confirms Meghan Markle’s fiancé can take a joke.
And she declared: “Prince Harry is so nice. England literally has the coolest royalty in the world.”
Margot later cringed with embarrassment over the prank when she bumped into the royal in a photo booth at a party thrown by model Suki Waterhouse in London in 2016.
Harry was wearing comedy specs, and was squeezed in with cousin Princess Eugenie, actress Sienna Miller, presenter Poppy Jamie and Cara as well as Margot.
She said: “There were maybe five of us in this photo booth and I didn’t realise until I was inside that one of the people was Prince Harry.
“He loved the booth though, I think he should get one for the wedding for sure.”
Margot opened up ahead of the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, where she is up for Best Actress for her role as disgraced skater Tonya Harding in I, Tonya.
In a wide-ranging interview, she admits that her background in Australia — and her former role in Neighbours — made her an unlikely candidate for Oscars glory.
Her early years on a farm in Dalby, Queensland, left her with an accent she calls “Crocodile Dundee”.
She added: “I really felt when I was a child that being a Hollywood actress was completely impossible for a girl from the Gold Coast.
“Because I grew up in the country I had a very thick Australian accent when I started acting.
“They had to hire a dialogue coach to soften my accent because it was too Australian. Crocodile Dundee, that was me.
“My upbringing on a farm made Hollywood seem unattainable — it made it seem much further away.”
As a child Margot wanted to be a magician, but fell for acting during drama classes at a local college.
She started shooting independent movies, then in 2008, aged 17, won a role in Neighbours.
But after playing obsessive music fan Donna Freedman for three years she reached a crossroads. She recalled: “I could see when I was on Neighbours that I had three options.
“Either I could get fired for not being good enough, and I didn’t want to do that because I loved working on Neighbours and I loved being on a set.
"Or I could stay on the show and have a very happy, comfortable life in Australia. That seemed like a lovely option but it also meant playing the same character year after year.
“Or I could make the move to America. At the time I couldn’t see myself moving forward in my career in the way I wanted to in Australia. I had to go to America.”
She moved to LA in 2011. But at first the switch did not run smoothly.
The hopeful even arrived at an early audition high on the powerful prescription drug Percocet after confusing a flatmate’s stash with a common painkiller.
Margot confessed: “I was off my head. It was a terrible audition, I’m sure. I remember curling up on the couch and the whole thing was terrible.”
Yet in her first year in LA Margot managed to win a role as a flight attendant on new show Pan Am, set in the Sixties.
But it was still not enough to convince her mum Sarie, a physiotherapist who raised Margot and her two brothers alone, that her daughter had solid career prospects.
Sarie was still urging Margot to give up acting and go to university right up until the movie beauty won the part of Leonardo DiCaprio’s wife in 2013 blockbuster The Wolf Of Wall Street.
Then, finally, her whole clan understood.
She said: “My family all thought it was kind of a hobby.
They were like, ‘I guess this acting thing is kind of fun right now but when are you going to get a real job?’.
“I think it took until I flew them over and showed them a poster of me in Times Square in New York and told them, ‘Guys, I am probably not going to go to university and get a different job’.
“Like, ‘This is happening and it’s a real job’. And then they started understanding it.” Starring roles followed in The Legend Of Tarzan and 2016’s Suicide Squad, alongside mischief-maker Cara Delevinge.
Despite being in high demand in Hollywood — with her next big role playing Elizabeth I in the upcoming Mary Queen Of Scots movie — Margot has lived in London for five years.
She first moved here on a whim after falling for the city on a visit for the premiere of The Wolf Of Wall Street in 2013.
The actress found a flat-share in Clapham, South West London — where Margot was introduced to a young assistant director called Tom Ackerley.
The flatmates fell in love and she and Surrey-born Tom, 28, married in Australia in 2016 before moving back to Clapham. Margot then bought a house in LA late last year.
Margot said: “When Tom and I met, we were best friends and we were roommates. And now we are married and are best friends and roommates.”
The pair ended up spending their honeymoon on the freezing, ice-rink-filled set of I, Tonya — Margot’s biggest role to date.
And the actress was so inspired by the story of the American skating champion Tonya Harding that she insisted on being a producer of the film too.
Tonya, now 47, was arrested in 1994 aged 23 over her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly’s orchestration of a savage attack on her friend and Olympic rival Nancy Kerrigan.
She eventually pleaded guilty to hindering the prosecution and was banned for life by the US Figure Skating Association.
And Margot says life on set in Atlanta recreating the astonishing real-life story was a long way from the glamour that will be on show at the Oscars tonight.
She said: “People think that in Hollywood, I spend all my time on a yacht or at a fancy party.
"I wish it were true. Making films is the least glamorous thing ever. For the most part you are sitting in a car park.
“And you only have Portaloos — there is nothing glamorous about it. My family back home are like,
‘What are you up to?’.
I tell them, ‘I am in a dingy ice skating rink in the middle of nowhere’.”
Meanwhile, Margot has become firm friends with Tonya, most recently hanging out together at the Golden Globe awards in LA in January.
Margot had been nominated as Best Actress, although she did not win.
She said: “The Globes was hilarious, sitting next to Tonya.
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Calamity pair out of the picture
BLUNDERING accountants who messed up last year’s Best Picture Oscar have been banished from this year’s ceremony – and won’t even be watching on TV.
Brian Cullinan, 58, handed Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway the wrong envelope for the award, meaning they announced La La Land as winner instead of Moonlight.
And his Pricewaterhouse- Coopers (PwC) partner Martha Ruiz, 44, failed to leap into action from the wings when the wrong title was read out.
Their firm, which has overseen the counting of Oscars ballots for 84 years, has now added strict new rules to prevent another fiasco.
And different company bigwigs will be on the scene tonight.
A source said: “The last thing the company wants is the two of them back in the spotlight after last year’s embarrassment. They kept their jobs at PwC but they’ll be staying at home for the Oscars.
“They won’t be watching on TV either. Both were really stung by what happened.”
Cullinan, who had to hire a bodyguard due to the furore after his cock-up, told The Sun on Sunday from his home in Malibu: “I’m fine. You know, life goes on.”
"She was like, ‘I’m going to say hi to Oprah’. Then she’d say, ‘Meryl, let’s get a picture’. And I was like, ‘Oh my God, Meryl Streep’.
“She asked Tom Hanks to take a picture and I and I was like, ‘Oh my God’.
“It was hilarious. She was so unapologetic.”