Every long marriage has an origin myth, and Margot Robbie’s is the least glamorous one available: she spent ages sure the man she loved would never love her back. Not a meet-cute at a premiere, just a film set and a crush she kept quiet. That man, the British producer Tom Ackerley, has now been her husband for almost ten years, her business partner for twelve, and since October 2024 the father of their son. This December they mark ten years married, and in September her surname turned up changed in a company filing. I think the friend zone deserves a fresh look.
How Margot Robbie and Tom Ackerley met
They met in 2013 on the set of Suite Française, a Second World War drama in which Robbie had a small part and Ackerley worked as a third assistant director (the person who keeps everyone else on schedule, so he was already managing her time). There was no romance at first. They were friends, and Robbie was firmly against relationships.
She told Vogue in 2016 that she had been “the ultimate single gal” and that “the idea of relationships made me want to vomit.” Then came the confession that gives this story its title: “We were friends for so long. I was always in love with him, but I thought, Oh, he would never love me back.” In the same interview she called him “the best-looking guy in London,” and she was not being diplomatic.
Here is my read: this is the most reassuring celebrity love story there is, because it runs on the same nerves as everyone else’s. A future Oscar nominee sat on her feelings like the rest of us and assumed the answer was no.
A secret wedding and a honeymoon spent working
They became a couple in 2014 and never officially announced an engagement. In December 2016 they married in a small private ceremony in Byron Bay, Australia, and the news came out after the fact. Robbie later posted a photo of her hand with the ring, which was as much of an announcement as the public got.
The honeymoon got postponed. In 2014 the couple had founded the production company LuckyChap Entertainment with their friends Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr, and its first film, I, Tonya, was shooting. “We should be on a honeymoon. What are we doing?!” Robbie told Extra in 2017. The film earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and Allison Janney won for Best Supporting Actress.
When they finally took the trip, to Tahiti, the hotel had other guests: Barack Obama, Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi. On Ellen in 2018, Robbie recalled coaching her husband in the hotel gym: “Tom, lunge! Lunge! You’re not lunging!” Only this couple could go on honeymoon to rest and end up doing lunges near a former president.
Business partners who still call themselves roommates
LuckyChap has since produced Promising Young Woman, which won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, as well as Barbie, Saltburn, the Netflix series Maid, and in February 2026 Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. Robbie produced that one and played Catherine Earnshaw opposite Jacob Elordi, with Ackerley as executive producer, and the two posed together at the Los Angeles premiere on January 28.
“We were best friends and roommates before and now we’re like best friends and roommates still,” Robbie told Vogue Australia in 2017. I believe her, and I think the shared office explains it: people who survive a cast list together usually survive the rest.
The Slytherin extra she married
A fact Robbie clearly enjoys more than any award: as a child, Ackerley was an extra in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. On The Graham Norton Show in 2020 she explained that he “was one of the Slytherin extras when Draco pushes some kids out of the way to see Buckbeak,” adding, “Had you told me sooner we would’ve been married very quickly.” A lifelong fan of the books, she ended up married to someone Draco Malfoy shoved on screen. Hollywood logic at its finest.
A son, a new surname and a lot of privacy
Robbie showed her baby bump at public events in summer 2024, including Wimbledon. People reported in November 2024 that the couple had welcomed a son in October. They have never announced the birth themselves or shared his name, and Robbie told British Vogue in December 2025 that she is “trying to keep that side of things private and protect him.” I think that is the right call, and the rest of us should respect it.
The newest detail is on paper. In September 2026, UK Companies House records for LuckyChap began listing her as “Margot Elise Ackerley” instead of “Margot Elise Robbie.” She has not commented, and on screen she is still credited as Margot Robbie. In this marriage a change of name arrives the way the wedding did: quietly, and found out afterwards.
Margot Robbie is still the star who once assumed her friend would never love her back. Ten years of marriage, a company, a son and a new surname on a filing say she got that one wrong. It is the only time I have been glad to see her misjudge a role.
Margot Robbie: real new generation Barbie doll
Sources
- UK Companies House: LuckyChap Entertainment officer records
- Vogue, June 2016 cover story by Jonathan Van Meter (via Pedestrian.TV)
- The Graham Norton Show (2020): Margot Robbie on her husband’s Harry Potter role (via The Brag)
- TODAY: Who Is Margot Robbie’s Husband? All About Tom Ackerley (Feb 2026)
- Hello!: Margot Robbie officially changes her name (Sept 2026)
- Just Jared: Margot Robbie quietly changes her last name on business documents (Sept 25, 2026)
- Gray News / People: Margot Robbie welcomes first child (Nov 2024)
- Wikipedia: Margot Robbie
