As Barbie finally hits theaters this weekend, star Margot Robbie is in the spotlight for her performance as the titular doll. But who is her real-life Ken?
Robbie, who is very private, quietly tied the knot to producer Tom Ackerley in 2016, after they dated for three years. Now, the two run a production company together—and the latest film they produced is none other than Barbie.
"I'm always nervous to start any job. I have this complete crisis of faith and think, 'Oh my gosh, I'm not even good at acting and I can't do this,'" Robbie told the Daily Mirror about Ackerley in 2021. "Every time I do a movie, I turn to my husband and I'm like, 'I don't think I can do this'. He says something like, 'You do this every time. You'll be fine.' "
Here's everything you need to know about Margot Robbie's husband Tom Ackerley:
He's a British film producer.
Ackerley, who was raised in Guildford, Surrey and attended Godalming College, works as a producer. "I seem to love a lot of British things," Robbie joked to The Mirror in 2021. "I love Harry Potter, I love my husband and I love Love Island. It’s great."
In addition to Barbie, he has produced Promising Young Woman, Maid, and I, Tonya, among other projects.
Robbie and Ackerley met in 2013.
They met on the set of Suite Française; she was an actress in the film and he was an assistant director. They started dating a year later. "I was the ultimate single gal. The idea of relationships made me want to vomit," Robbie later said. "And then this crept up on me. We were friends for so long. I was always in love with him, but I thought, Oh, he would never love me back. Don't make it weird, Margot. Don't be stupid and tell him that you like him. And then it happened, and I was like, Of course we're together. This makes so much sense, the way nothing has ever made sense before."
The same year they started dating, they created production company LuckyChap Entertainment alongside friends Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr. "I’m a great advocate of doing business with your partner," Robbie 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."
They got engaged and married in secret.
The private couple tied the knot in December 2016 in Australia. After, instead of going on a honeymoon, they went to work on I, Tonya—and took their delayed honeymoon to Tahiti after shooting wrapped. "We did [I, Tonya] instead of our honeymoon. There were times we were sitting in a car parked in Atlanta freezing cold being like, 'We should be on a beach right now. We should be on a honeymoon. What are we doing?!' Following our dream," Robbie told Extra in 2017.
He was an extra in third Harry Potter movies.
"My husband is in the Harry Potter movies. I know, I was like, 'Had you told me sooner we would've been married very quickly,'" Robbie, a major Potter fan, said in 2020. "But he was an extra when he was a little kid — he was one of the Slytherin extras when Draco pushes some kids out of the way to see Buckbeak in the third book. He pushes my husband out of the way."
He's on Instagram, but rarely posts.
Robbie has no social media accounts, but Ackerley has an Instagram, @alpha_meows. Robbie sometimes appears, like in this slideshow of photos from their trip to Lapland (swipe through):
As of this writing, however, he hasn't posted since March 2021.
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.
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