ARGOT ROBBIE SITS bouncing on the tip of a very large, very long tongue, laughing hysterically. It’s protruding from a statue of a woman’s head on a Burbank sound stage, which today has been decked out to represent a frightening abandoned funhouse. Sitting on another tongue opposite Robbie, also bouncing, are director Cathy Yan and screenwriter Christina Hodson, trying (not entirely successfully) to have a serious meeting in- between takes. This trio have formed a gang over the past four years, spearheading the movie Robbie has dreamed about since first playing the scene- stealing Harley Quinn — psychiatrist-turned- crazed criminal — in 2016’s DC comic-book adaptation Suicide Squad. Robbie, Yan and Hodson are having so much fun, you forget that the action scene they’re attempting to figure out (it involves a fight that takes placeinside an enormous slide) is one of the most complex in Birds Of Prey. Wearing her producer hat, Robbie starts running through the choreography for the fight. It’s immediately clear that she runs this show. She’s a popular boss. On Fridays, she chooses a different fancy dress theme. Today is ‘Hawaii’, hence a crew dressed in Hawaiian shirts and leis. Last week was St Patrick’s themed. Her cast and crew cannot stop effusing about her work ethic and intellect. Producer Bryan Unkeless even insists she’s the most impressive person he’s ever met. “I feel most fortunate about meeting Margot Robbie more than most any other person in my life,” he says. “Every day we’re worried about a hundred things, but we’re never worried about Margot.” When Robbie took on the role of Harley in David Ayer’s DC misfire, she adopted the character like a child she wanted to nurture. “Harley’s become incredibly important to me,” she says, putting on a Hawaiian shirt to cover her temporary Harley tattoos. In Suicide Squad, Harley was alone in her femininity: she was defined by her relationship with the Joker, carved by men. Robbie had a fantasy that Harley could break out and find a female gang. She was to be an antihero in her own Gotham — a more vibrant, more colourful, and frankly more insane city. And so for Birds � Birds of a feather: Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), FROM THE ASHES OF SUICIDE SQUAD HAS RISEN SOMETHING FRESH, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), BOLD AND EXCITING: BIRDS OF PREY. INSIDE THE FIRST-EVER Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), Cass (Ella Jay Basco) and Black FEMALE-ENSEMBLE SUPERHERO FILM Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell). WORDS EVE BARLOW 78 MONTH 2020 FEBRUARYMONTH 2020 79 alongside Yan. The casting of Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya — a gay police officer who has forever been overlooked and dismissed — gives the group a further dimension. Perez brought her experience as a Puerto Rican “quasi-straight” woman growing up in poverty to Renee, in addition to her experience of HIV/AIDS activism. “She’s trying to understand that it’s not just where you fight, it’s how you fight,” she says of Renee. “Sometimes you have to get off your own soapbox, understand that you’re not alone in the struggle, that you need a team. Renee has been screaming and swallowing that anger, then waking up with a hangover, not understanding how that got in her way.” The final piece in the puzzle is the militant Of Prey Robbie drove the process, picking Above: Robbie Huntress, dressed in fishnets, leather, and with Hodson to write the script, and breaking away flies again as braids in her hair. Born Helena Rosa Bertinelli, she from the genre’s formula to actualise her squad. agent of chaos is the daughter of a powerful Mob boss. As a child, It has proven cannily well-timed. In the three Harley Quinn. her family were murdered in front of her. She years since Suicide Squad, #MeToo and the Time’s Below right: trains to become an assassin to avenge their deaths. Up movement have encouraged Hollywood’s Director Cathy Next on her list? Roman. Mary Elizabeth Winstead women to stop holding their tongues. “It’s such Yan laughs with has always been reluctant to act in a comic-book a great time in the culture to be telling these her star/producer franchise for fear of being oversexualised. “This stories,” says producer Sue Kroll. “The fact it’s on set. Bottom: was momentous,” she says of working with so being done as such a big, populist, commercial Ewan McGregor many women. “It’s something that was denied undertaking with DC is just really exciting.” The (or is that Ella Jay Basco makes her feature to me for so long. It just wasn’t on the table.” film seeks to tackle thoroughly 2020 questions. Bono?!) slicks debut as Cass — Harley’s pseudo little sis. Who is Harley without the Joker? Who is the up as Roman woman without the man? And how is she bolstered Sionis/Black by the other badass women surrounding her? Mask. chooses the most motley of crews: Black Canary DESPITE THE GANG mentality, Harley remains (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), Huntress (Mary Elizabeth isolated in one aspect: she’s not a hero like the Winstead) and Gotham’s under-appreciated other Birds. There is no grand arc in which she detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez). They don’t becomes a changed person. “She’s not a good guy, THE ANSWERS LIE in the lengthily titled Birds get along. “I didn’t want Charlie’s Angels,” says she’s never gonna save the day,” says Robbie. She’s Of Prey : And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of Yan. “I didn’t want them to look like they were in a catalyst of chaos. Robbie concedes that come the One Harley Quinn. “Emancipation” is the optimum a sorority.” It aspires to be a more realistic look end credits Harley at least feels “a little less shit word. On set, everyone is keen to emphasise that When we meet Harley, she’s freshly broken “I sleep with my bunny that I’ve had since birth,” at complex female relationships. The Birds are about herself”. She is almost over the Joker. The this movie is separate from Suicide Squad. Gone is up with the Joker. He dumped her. “She’s trying confesses Robbie. “Why does Harley feel attached each emancipating themselves from something task of pushing her story on is physically and the gratuitous violence. In its place is a movie to own it,” says Robbie. “That felt like a real way to a toy? People attach themselves to childhood distinct. Unkeless puts it best: “The act of making emotionally draining, even without the task Robbie about women, by women, for everyone. It’s driven to deal with a break-up. It’s not clean and easy to things when they haven’t dealt with the past.” the movie has been a layer of manifesting what has of producing the film. Harley is constantly by the female gaze, right down to the choice of be a strong woman. It’s so hard.” Harley’s heart the movie is about: unique, smart, talented stimulated. “She can react in a million different footwear. “If we veered towards a heel that you is trashed as she’s picking her life back up. Her women who come to work with one another.” ways,” says Robbie. “It’s knackering. Yesterday couldn’t walk in we said, ‘No!’” says costume rent-controlled apartment is above a Chinese So without further ado, let’s meet the Birds. we were all having lunch, and a cake came past designer Erin Benach, who ensured the looks restaurant. “It’s a bit of a mess,” says Kroll. Empire BIRDS OF PREY may be a day in the life of First up: Black Canary. We first get introduced to and I said, ‘Ooh cake!’ And someone went: ‘How were fun but also pragmatic for all impending gets a peek at a one-bed flat filled with the candy Harley, but crucially it’s not all about her. One her as Dinah Lance — a ferocious street fighter much of Harley do you let stay around?!’” ass-kicking. Harley is DIY. She wears caution tape wrappers Harley’s been eating her feelings woman can’t tell every woman’s story. “Harley whose mother’s demise left Dinah orphaned. Four years ago, nobody was asking for a Birds as an accessory. “Harley’s the life of the party at through, and video cassettes from cartoon binges on her own is like a kid in an empty playground. “Dinah’s closed off from the world and wants Of Prey movie. Now it’s exactly what the unhinged all times. She can dance anybody into oblivion.” (Bugs Bunny etc). There’s a onesie decorated with Where is the fun?” asks Robbie. The DC world nothing to do with cleaning up Gotham. She’s like, doctor ordered. “It’s funny,” says Robbie. “The Even the structure is breaking DC ground. sad smileys on the settee. And there’s a pet hyena is full of amazing female characters to mine, ‘Fuck Gotham,’” says Jurnee Smollett-Bell. Dinah #metoo movement changed the relevancy of It’s not macho — led neither by CG explosions called Bruce (a back-handed nod to the Bat?). and the choices here are an intentional move to also doesn’t like Harley. “She thinks Harley is every project. It either became very timely or it nor a linear plot. “I was so desensitised to “Harley is a lover of unusual pets,” laughs Kroll. diversify the women as much as possible.