From Queen Elizabeth I and Sharon Tate to Harley Quinn and Barbie, Margot Robbie is no stranger to embodying beauty icons. Now, she’s the face of Chanel N°5, the fashion house’s most iconic perfume.

To mark the occasion, the actress stars in a short film, See You at 5, alongside Saltburn’s Jacob Elordi, directed by Luca Guadagnino (Challengers and Call Me By Your Name). The two actors are also set to star in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation next year.

“I’ve obviously been working with Chanel for a couple of years now, but this is the most iconic fragrance and within a timeless, iconic brand,” she tells me. “It’s a huge honour and so many incredible women have been the face of Chanel N°5 in the past. I just can’t quite believe that I get to be a part of that lineage.”

I’m talking to Robbie from Los Angeles on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, where she gives me an insight into her captivating – yet somewhat inconsistent, she admits – beauty and wellness routine, her evolving relationship with Chanel N°5, and the meticulous on-screen hair and make-up transformations she is best known for.

On early Chanel memories…

“My earliest memories are probably the campaign shoots, like Baz Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman. When I think of Chanel N°5, I think of her dress in that slow-mo shot as she’s running down the street. There’s a lot of iconic imagery surrounding N°5 and Chanel shoots in general. It’s always an exciting thing when there’s a new campaign – whether it’s Marion Cotillard and Dancing On The Moon, or Gisele Bündchen surfing, or Nicole in the streets of New York right after she did Moulin Rouge.”

“For me, the really iconic ones are the Ridley Scott campaigns from the eighties, which we took a lot of inspiration from, for the shoot with the red suit I’m wearing. It’s very much like Carole Bouquet’s suit that she wore. It’s amazing to have that lineage and it also is nice that we could give little nods to it along the way.”

On scenting characters…

“One thing that I always do with my characters is pick a perfume for each one. I know a lot of people find this, so I’m not unique in saying this, but I find that scent can really anchor me in a memory or a mood and be very transportive. There are perfumes even now that I can smell and remember the exact person who wore it when I was 15 or at a certain time in my life. It takes you there immediately and anchors you in a moment or a time or a person. I find it really helpful when creating a character because you go into work and you’re feeling like yourself and you can put the hair and make-up on, but then you put the scent on and you’re like: ‘Okay, I’m her’.”

On style inspirations…

“I find inspiration everywhere. When it comes to a red-carpet look, we pull reference images. It can be Lauren Hutton, it could be Brigitte Bardot. For characters I’ve played, or whoever I’m working with, I always find inspiration in the icons. For Barbie, we had a lot of images of Catherine Deneuve, who was also the face of Chanel N°5, but particularly her in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Brigitte Bardot, we also referenced a lot. It’s those icons that remain timeless because you can’t help but feel inclined to recreate them in some way.”

On evolving attitudes to beauty…

“I’m in my thirties now and I feel like I’ve figured out what works for me in a way that I don’t think I had figured out when I was younger. Definitely not as a teenager. We all have that horrifying moment where you look back at a photo and you’re like, ‘Why did I have that side fringe?’ Trends change, but also sometimes it’s just in its execution, not quite working. Then in my twenties, I was still figuring out what made me feel good. Sometimes you fall into the trap of wanting to jump onto a trend or a fad but I prefer now to just enhance the parts of me that I like the most. That feels the most authentic, but I think it also just comes across as looking the nicest.”

On beauty basics…

“I drink a lot of water. I always wear sunscreen. All that boring stuff that you hear and you’re like, ‘I know I should do all that.’ I really do do all that. I’m Australian, so sunscreen is the key to everything. I put my make-up on pretty quickly. I spend longer prepping my skin, or after I take my make-up off [I spend longer] looking after my skin than I do actually applying make-up.”

On attitudes to wellness…

“I’m not a very consistent person. That’s definitely my problem when it comes to exercise or wellness in general. I feel like sometimes I’m good and sometimes I’m not good. I definitely could be better and I could get more sleep and be more consistent with my regime.”

On professional treatments…

“I swear by oxygen facials. I have an oxygen machine and that has been a game-changer for me. I also have Melasma so I find it helps with that a lot. I love a lymphatic drainage massage. There’s this company called Ricari and they use machines and I find it really, really effective.”

On beauty-inspiring roles…

“[The character I relate to most beauty-wise] is a tricky one. Definitely not Queen Elizabeth, because babe was wearing way too much make-up. You can’t say Sharon Tate, she’s so impossibly beautiful. I think someone like Sharon Tate – both the character of Sharon Tate that I played and definitely the woman herself – her inner happiness is what shone through and made her even more beautiful than she was physically, I’d say. That’s a nice aspirational ideal.”

On feeling beautiful…

“I feel the most beautiful when I feel like I look like the best version of myself. I feel a bit uncomfortable when there are a ton of things going on and it’s not really me. When I feel really comfortable, and I’m comfortable in how I look and what I’m wearing, I can just enjoy whatever it is that I’m doing.”