Margot Robbie: Being Australian keeps me grounded

Margot Robbie says being Australian keeps her grounded.

The ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ star – who grew up on a farm on the Gold Coast in Queensland – doesn’t think she’ll ever become a Hollywood diva because she was taught about "tall-poppy syndrome" growing up.

She said: "There’s a thing in Australia called tall-poppy syndrome. Have you heard of it? It’s a pretty prevalent thing – they even teach it in school.

"Poppies are tall flowers, but they don’t grow taller than the rest of the flowers, so there’s a mentality in Australia where people are really happy for you to do well; you just can’t do better than everyone else or they will cut you down to size."

And the 26-year-old actress also opened up about her struggle to make it to Hollywood, admitting she called the ‘Neighbours’ set every day to get a job in her chosen career.

She told Vanity Fair magazine: "I called every day, and, eventually, one day, they put me through to Jan Russ, a producer for ‘Neighbours’. I got her on the phone just as I was about to leave Melbourne. And I was like, ‘Oh, I’m here filming a guest role in City Homicide – can I meet you?’ I went in and she was like, ‘How old are you?’ ‘Seventeen.’ And she says, ‘We’re casting for a 17-year-old girl right now …’

"I’d sit in the makeup chair and have 60 pages to memorize because my character spoke so much. She was the one that would walk in and be a whirlwind, bluh bluh bluh, la, la, la, talk, talk, talk, and run out again. We did an episode a day. In film terms, that’s insane. It was amazing training."