Inside Margot Robbie and Husband Tom Ackerley's Epic Love Story

His coolness was key to eventually winning the heart of the self-described "ultimate single gal," who gave birth to their son in October 2024, months after the end of the Barbenheimer awards season hoopla. 

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They first met in 2013 when Ackerley served as third assistant director on the WWII-era romance Suite Française, in which Robbie had a supporting role. She bonded with him and several other crew members, and when she rolled back through London to do press for The Wolf of Wall Street early the following year, they all decided to get a place together.

It was while sharing a three-bedroom house in Clapham with five roommates, including future business partners Kerr (Robbie's mate since childhood) and McNamara (second AD on Suite Française), that Ackerley and Robbie's friendship quickly blossomed into more.

They kept it a secret at first, Robbie later told The Guardian, "because we weren't really taking it seriously."

And then, the newlyweds were kicked out of the fold.

"It was our roommates who told us, 'You guys had a wedding. You have to live on your own now,'" Robbie told The Guardian. "It honestly hadn't occurred to us. We were, like, 'Hmm? What? Just the two of us? That's gonna be weird.' And the first time we were in a house, the two of us, it was weird. Nice. But we missed having heaps of people around."

Sure enough, when she spoke to Vogue in the summer of 2019, the Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood actress divulged that her older brother, as well as a cousin and her husband, were living with her and Ackerley. 

"It's a common theme, isn't it?" Robbie noted. "I hate—hate—being alone."

Close quarters don't bother her, either. After Barbie wrapped in 2022, she and Ackerley took the British Pullman from London and then overnighted on the Orient Express from Paris to Venice. Then, on a trip to Japan, they rode the seven-car Seven Stars across the island of Kyushu.

"All I want to do," Robbie explained to Vogue, "is live on a train."

Eating also factors heavily into their relationship, both abroad (they waited in line for three and a half hours to sample udon carbonara in Tokyo) and at home, where she tends to steer clear of the kitchen.

"My husband is a phenomenal cook," Robbie raved on a February episode of the Table Manners podcast. "He could be a chef, he is so good. We are like a perfect match."

But she didn't marry him for his knife skills, noting that she didn't even know he was a great cook until after they had swapped vows.

"He spends two days making a spaghetti bolognese," she explained. "He does a three-day fried rice with Korean short ribs. He does steak better than any restaurant I've ever been to!"

As for her own culinary acumen, Robbie pointed to the time she served undercooked ham to her in-laws one Christmas in the U.K.

"I watched his grandma nearly put a raw piece of pork in her mouth," the actress recalled. "She could have died so I slapped it out of her hand!"

Robbie does, however, take pride in being great at spending time with Ackerley, seamlessly mixing business with pleasure.

"I'm a great advocate of doing business with your partner," she told Porter in 2018. "Being married is actually the most fun ever, life got way more fun somehow. I have a responsibility being someone's wife, I want to be better."

At the same time, Robbie told Vogue Australia, they were "still best friends and roommates, so nothing's really changed at all."

Other than that pear-shaped diamond ring, which she wore on weekends. "I can't obviously wear it during the week when I'm working," she said. "I don't want to lose it on set."

If she and Ackerley have to be apart, they abide by a three-weeks-at-most rule. "Even if we both have to fly to a country in-between where we both are for one night," Robbie told Porter, "we'll do it and then fly back to work the next day. And we speak all day, every day on the phone."

Not to mention, communication is key when you're making history together.

But they were determined to make it happen.

"We spent time at Mattel headquarters," Robbie told the New York Times, "we went into their factories, we watched them make a doll and we talked to people who make them. They knew we were coming from a place of respecting the brand."

She and Ackerley also had long conversations with Mattel executives as the protectors of the doll's complicated image combed through Gerwig's script line by line.

But while Ackerley was a hands-on producer, he was happy for Robbie to be the face of Barbie in more ways than one.

"I think this'll be the [marketing campaign] they do dissertations on," Ackerley told The Upcoming at the film's London premiere, hanging out with fellow producer David Heyman while Robbie was belle of the ball. And he acknowledged that his wife and Ryan Gosling made for a "great combination" as Barbie and Ken.