Margot Robbie is nothing if not committed to her role as the DCEU’s Harley Quinn, having put the work in to make sure that the fan favorite character is convincing when it comes to the action sequences. The actress already had a background in trapeze and ballet long before becoming a major Hollywood star, and she’s proven herself to be no slouch when it comes to kicking all sorts of ass.
The two-time Academy Award nominee does the majority of her own stunts whether it’s getting strapped into wire harnesses and thrown around, learning the choreography to engage in some hand-to-hand combat or training to hold her breath for up to five minutes for scenes that saw her handcuffed underwater. The Suicide Squad writer and director James Gunn has clearly leaned into her expertise, too, after he teased a massive action sequence that puts Robbie front and center, calling it the best four minutes he’s ever shot.
“Physically, she is a pure athlete and is able to do these stunts in such a graceful, magnificent, beautiful way. And so I wrote the biggest action scene I’ve ever done all around Harley, and it was so fun to create just on every level from working with the stunt guys all the way through to working with her. It’s probably my favorite four minutes of film I’ve ever shot before.”
David Ayer’s Suicide Squad may have been a bit of a bust, but Robbie was singled out as one of the blockbuster’s few highlights, and while solo spinoff Birds of Prey disappointed at the box office, she’s clearly got no intentions of giving up on the role just yet. Gunn may have hinted that almost everyone dies during the course of The Suicide Squad, but you’d expect Harley Quinn to be a little too valuable and marketable to bite the dust at this point.
In any case, The Suicide Squad promises a return to Gunn’s R-rated roots in the superhero ensemble subgenre he’s already mastered with Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, so audiences are in for a real treat when it hits theaters and HBO Max in August.