Tom Ackerley

Tom Ackerley was born on January 1, 1990, in Surrey, England. He always hoped to have a career in the entertainment industry. To pursue that hope, he enrolled at Godalming College for a degree in film studies.

Ackerley was introduced to Margot Robbie on the set of ‘Suite Française’, the 2014 British-French-Belgian romantic World War II drama film, in 2013. He was serving as the third assistant director whereas she had a supporting role. This was prior to her ascend to international stardom through her performance in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’. She was the one who became interested first.

Later that year, she travelled to London for the premiere of ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ and got together with the crew of ‘Suite Francaise’, including Ackerley. It did not take them long to decide that they should live together. However, someone pointed out that Robbie did not live in London, to which she answered, “I don't live anywhere. I'll move”.

In 2011, Tom Ackerley started off his career in the entertainment industry by working as a floor runner on four episodes of BBC’s period drama ‘The Hour’. He also worked as a location runner on Steven Spielberg’s historical drama ‘War Horse’. Ackerley was a crowd runner on ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ (2011); floor runner on ‘Big Fat Gypsy Gangster’ (2011), ‘Now Is Good’ (2012), and ‘Gambit’ (2012); set production assistant on ‘Trance’ (2013); and daily crew runner on Ron Howard’s sports biography ‘Rush’ (2013).

In 2012, he served under director Jim Cartwright as the third assistant director on the season one episode ‘King of the Teds’ of Sky Arts 1’s series of self-contained TV plays, called ‘Playhouse Presents’. He then got the chance to assist director Ruairi Robinson on the science fiction horror ‘The Last Days on Mars’ (2013). On ‘Final Prayer’, he was the first assistant of director Elliot Goldner.

In 2014, he worked in four films: Hossein Amini’s ‘The Two Faces of January’, Matthew Warchus’ ‘Pride’, Joe Lynch’s ‘Everly’, and Saul Dibb’s ‘Suite Française’. That year he was also involved as the third assistant director in two episodes of Starz’s historical fantasy drama ‘Da Vinci's Demons’.

He travelled to Morocco to be the director of the third unit of the short-lived NBC’s war thriller TV series ‘American Odyssey’. He was then part of the crew of the short film ‘Yussef Is Complicated’, action thriller ‘MI V’, the 2015 cinematic adaptation of William Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, and the action comedy ‘The Brothers Grimsby’.

He and Robbie founded LuckyChap Entertainment in 2014. They have produced three of Robbie’s movies till date, ‘I, Tonya’ (2017), ‘Terminal’ (2018), and ‘Dreamland’ (2018). As one of the producers of ‘I, Tonya’, Ackerley was nominated for Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Feature Film and Producers Guild of America Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture. Robbie was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of the real-life figure skater Tonya Harding. Allison Janney won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her outing as Harding’s mother, LaVona Golden.