Margot Robbie doesn't think she will ever be able to learn lines at the speed she used to during her 'Neighbours' days.

Margot Robbie

Margot Robbie

The 31-year-old star shot to fame in the Australian soap when she appeared as aspiring fashion designer Donna Freedman from 2008 to 2011, before swapping Melbourne for Hollywood, but she cannot believe how quickly she used to get through her scripts during her time in the serial drama.

She said: "I always said after walking off a soap everything would be easy after that.

"It was a brilliant training ground.

"I used to sit down with 60 pages in my lap in a morning and just fly through it, read it once. Got it.

"I don't think I could do that now."

The 'Birds of Prey' star is also grateful for working on a soap because that time has made her more "aware" of other departments when she is on a movie or a TV set.

She said: "I think the biggest thing about working on a soap and working with a multi-camera scenario was being so aware of every other department, and working within the bigger machine.

"I feel sometimes in feature films, you can kind of be like, 'Oh, everyone can work around my process.' "

But Margot believes those actors who started off in soap are good at adapting to work "within everyone else's parameters as well".

The actress' 'The Suicide Squad' co-star Idris Elba also cut his teeth in Soapland, appearing as Tim Webster in Channel 5’s now-defunct flagship soap 'Family Affairs'.

And he has admitted being part of such a show was a great training ground for learning lines quickly.

When asked about the positives to take from his time on 'Family Affairs', while speaking in a joint interview on 'Lorraine', he said: "How to learn your lines in five minutes."