Margot Robbie: My Feminism Was Shaped by the Spice Girls

“I feel like i need to correct the record a little bit,” Margot Robbie tells Rolling Stone.

Earlier this year, the actress revealed to the world that she had a bit of a “goth phase” and loved heavy metal when she was younger. But it was just one of many formative musical obsessions that shaped the Barbie star during her youth.

“I had my death-metal phase — and I do still like that — but I also like a lot of music,” she continues. 

When Robbie was five, she became particularly obsessed with the Beach Boys thanks to a tape her family had. It was “all [she] would listen to.” She was so devoted to the group that she even refused to listen to the Beatles.

“I had watched a documentary about how the Beach Boys would have been even more popular if the Beatles hadn’t come along and stolen the limelight,” she explains. The band had ties to Barbie’s world just a few years before Robbie was born, with Brian Wilson having penned a tune called “Living Doll (Barbie)” for the California Dream Barbie in 1987. Earlier this year, the Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun” was featured in the Barbie trailer.

As a Nineties kid, Robbie also had a strong love for the pop music of that era. She begged Barbie director and co-writer Greta Gerwig to include the bubbly Aqua hit “Barbie Girl” in the film in some capacity. She also loved the Spice Girls, an impossible-to-avoid musical phenomenon for any young girl during that time.

“The Spice Girls changed everything and dictated my version of second-wave feminism,” Robbie says. “It’s like, ‘Oh, my God, they wear little sparkly dresses and push-up bras, and then have a girl gang? That’s what I want to be!’” (The Spice Girls inspired their own line of Barbie-like dolls, though those weren’t official Barbie/Mattel toys.)

Robbie entered her metal and emo era when she was a teenager, and though it didn’t last forever, it still helped shape her eclectic taste. That taste has bled into her prolific acting career, as she often makes playlists for the characters she inhabits before stepping foot into their worlds. 

“I can anchor my character and myself in either a time period or a certain feeling,” she explains. “Music is so helpful for that.”

This interview was conducted prior to the actors strike.

From Rolling Stone US.