ARTNEWSPRESS: The Birds of Prey movie is looking to take Harley Quinn in a new direction. Producers Sue Kroll and Bryan Unkeless tell us what’s changing.
The Birds of Prey movie is taking everything that worked with Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad, and using it to bring an entire batch of women warriors into the DC movie universe. But make no mistake: this new adventure is one of a kind, completely unconnected to Suicide Squad or Joker. And the producers see it as a win for more than just this one film.
Speaking with producers Sue Kroll and Bryan Unkeless during our visit to the Birds of Prey set, we found out how long overdue this kind of blockbuster really is, and what potential the studio sees in a female-led, girl gang movie. The goal is to make a Harley-Quinn led story that is, above all, fun, irreverent, and possessing “a gritty spirit.” Check out our full interview with Kroll and Unkeless below.
What can you tell us about the Birds of Prey, Harley Quinn, and the way these two DC properties will be adapted in the movie?
Sue Kroll: This is an origin story about the Birds of Prey, told uniquely through Harley Quinn’s point of view. She’s the narrator of the film. So of course, because she’s so kooky, and irreverent, and nuts, and all that, her perspective allows for a very distinct and unique kind of story that we’re telling. The movie is funny, and irreverent, and it’s very, very smart. But also very gritty, and very audacious, and hopefully more than that. But it’s a really unique experience in this world.
It’s been fun to watch what DC is doing now, right? The landscape is completely different with all these new characters. This movie is really unlike anything that’s been done, and I think is indicative of what Warner Bros. is going to be doing in the future. It’s really great to pull all these women together, when you see Cathy and Margot later they’ll talk to you a little bit more about the inspiration, and thinking, and the philosophy behind it and all of that. So we don’t want to spoil that for you.
Bryan Unkeless: I really hope you guys have some fun. We’ve had a lot of fun. This has been a blast. It’s a really great group of people. It started with Margot wanting to do a girl gang movie, and give Harley some friends, right? She plays so well with others. So we started there and brought Christina Hodson on, and they built this amazing world and script. We’ve been working on this for months and months and months. Now we’re about two-thirds of the way through production and we really have found, I think, this very special, fun rhythm. It’s just a lot of people that actually deeply care about this. Throughout the whole time it’s been very important to us that we think about what will be satisfying for an audience. And for you guys.
How important is it to you to have female protagonists, a female director, and screenwriter, and producer behind and in front of the camera?
SK: I think it’s fantastic. [To Bryan] No offense, I’m sorry. Bryan, by the way, everybody on the production, all the women love Bryan. He’s so great to work with. I think it’s fabulous, I do. Having sat on the other side of this for so many years, and observing, and watching, I think it’s wonderful that women are getting so many opportunities. I really do. And it’s very gratifying for me personally. There’s so many wonderful and talented people out there, right? And it’s all about the alchemy in the mix, but I think the fact that Cathy Yan, who’s really a second time director, and who came in and did an amazing presentation, is so worthy of this movie. The fact that she is directing it, and Christina wrote it, and Margot is also producing, and they allowed me to come in. We have all these amazing women, the creativity is a very different kind of energy. But everybody is really excited about it.
So many people are talking to me now about other projects for women. The fact that women are being included in this way… Hopefully it’ll be an automatic thing, like we won’t even be talking about it in a couple of years. But I think it’s amazing, and very worthy. And this movie has these incredible themes of female empowerment, but it’s also really fun. It’s not on the nose but it incorporates that unique perspective. So it’s great.
How would you say this film has similarities to Suicide Squad? Or what are some of the biggest differences?
SK: I don’t think it has any similarities to Suicide Squad, except that we have Harley at the center of it. I mean her character really is the one that popped out of Suicide Squad, so all of the amazing things that people embraced about her we have in our movie, and then some. We have this unique opportunity, right? We have two hours, or whatever the movie winds up being, the opportunity to exploit and add dimension and context around what is, I think, arguably one of the world’s favorite characters out of the DC Universe. So she’s the thing that’s the same, but other than that it’s a standalone story. And uniquely its own.
Harley Quinn has such an interesting psychology, and we’ve seen in the modern comics… I don’t even want to say a redemption story, but she’s a little more independent now. Is that something we’re going to see in this movie?
SK: Definitely. And I think a different side, that you won’t just see crazy, or ‘looney.’ There are moments in the movie–and there’s some you’re going to see today when you’re on set, so I don’t think I’m spoiling anything for you that’s emotional–but you see a lot of dimension to it. And Margot is of course an amazing actress who can do anything, which we’ve discovered. There is a lot of dimension to her character in this movie.
BU: The story is seen through her prism, and her lens, right? So that allowed us to make a lot of bold choices, narratively and tonally. It was important to us to push boundaries on this movie. We were inspired by the overall worldview of Harley Quinn. Which is just so fun, and absurd, and subversive, and untouchable. That’s definitely what drove us as we were developing this.
Harley Quinn’s morality is also a really important part of her character. When you’re making this movie, do you think about, ‘is the audience totally sympathetic to Harley and her friends? Are they on her side?’ Because it seems like they have this pretty important mission of saving this young girl, but how complex is that?
SK: I think it’s complex. I think the movie is very nuanced, when it comes to exactly that. What’s also interesting, and you’ll start to see as time goes on, is that you can experience that through all these other characters in the film as well. She comes away as somebody who’s much more complicated rather than sort of singular… ‘nuts.’
BU: We’re so accustomed to having heroes and villains, and I think this movie lives a little bit more in the grey. Where some of the people can do villainous things but not be completely made of bad. There’s a lot of ways to understand them, and get a little bit of perspective. With each of our characters, but specifically the female characters, we are finding at really interesting and unique transitionary times in their lives. That’s where that ‘emancipation’–like they’re emancipating themselves from something. Whether it’s the circumstances that they’re working within, or some kind of patriarchal system, or an emotional relationship, or whatever it may be. But because of that vulnerability that comes from that, people act in sometimes good, and sometimes bad ways. It’s hopefully a bit more nuanced.
There are obviously a lot of themes of womanhood, girl power, and ‘girl gangs’ around this movie for Harley. What would you say are the underlying reasons that drew you to this project?
SK: For me personally, I’m fortunate enough to sit in a really unique position on this movie, because I’ve been with Warner Bros. for so long, and worked on the other movies. Just for marketing obviously, and distribution. First of all, I love the diversity of this movie, but the fact that it is so unique in the world… this is so exciting. I thought, ‘This is so bold.’ It introduces all these new characters that people haven’t seen in any movies before, only in the comics. How exciting is that? The ability to sort of create a world, to create an origin story, where I’m sure their characters can spin off. To be a part of that, and also something female-led in this day and age.
I think after Wonder Woman and now with Captain Marvel, that just feels so personally gratifying to me and exciting in a very unique way. I love the story and all the characters, warts and all. I’m always in love with the villains, they’re always my favorite. So it’s like a smorgasbord of everything. I love everything about it.
BU: Playing off of something that you said earlier: that in a couple years, maybe we won’t be talking about this as much. What I think is interesting about this story is that it has very distinct feminine ideology and undertones, but it isn’t fully encompassed by it. It isn’t like, ‘All these women come together, look we’re putting them up on a pedestal.’ It is more complicated than that. They all have their own interesting moral center, and they form alliances or don’t. But it isn’t as pat as ‘Oh, we’re forming this sisterhood.’
I think to push beyond, and do a more hopefully authentic–at least that’s certainly what the aspiration is–and real look at relationships, and then specifically female relationships, and how that plays out is something that’s been guiding us. Then doing that all in a very fun, popcorn, commercially-minded, generous way that more than anything, is just going to be a ride. So it doesn’t feel so potentially earnest, or…
SK: ‘Message-y’…
BU: Yeah, message-y, or message-oriented. But doing it in a way that’s really authentic.
SK: One other thing on that too, is it’s also that the world is very grounded. The other thing about this movie that I think is really unique is that everyone talks about their movies being really relatable. I think this is genuinely relatable. You can look at these characters and–even though you might not wear your hair in pigtails or you might not carry a mallet–but the attributes and circumstances for all of them are very relatable. Some more so than others, but there’s a way in, an access point. I think it’s very different. I could never relate to Superman or Batman, even though I aspired to their ideals. This is a different kind of experience, I think.
What is it that you love about these villains, and what makes them feel different from other ones we’ve seen?
SK: There’s so much…
BU: First of all, it starts with them being incredibly well-drawn characters from Christina. She really pushed to make them singular. It’s so easy to fall into the familiar villainous tropes, and she just refused over and over and over again to settle for that, which you have to respect a lot. We certainly aspired to make them distinct. Then you bring in the actors that we brought to them. It was important to us that they were unexpected in their villainous behavior. Part of them is really charming and likable, right? We didn’t go for the traditional ‘heavy.’ You look at Ewan’s career in particular, and the variety of performances he’s given, how much depth he has. And he brings that humanity to your villain. Which is pretty great. Plus he’s created a really distinct character that’s at times larger than life. But again, relatable.
SK: I think it’s exactly what Bryan is saying. It’s really important because you find yourself with Ewan… the character of Roman is so complicated, it’s not black and white, and that makes it very enjoyable. Because even though we know the script and what’s going to happen, to be watching him perform, he does so many surprising things. So what motivates him–he’s very well-drawn and unfamiliar. He’s certainly unfamiliar to me, right? He’s not a villain that’s like one of the top five villains of DC that people know about. So what motivates him, his backstory, how he deals with situations, it’s always unexpected and surprising. You find yourself liking him and hating him at the same time, which I think is very unique.
SK: I’m someone who always loves the villains, that’s just my personal thing. That’s why I appreciate it so much. And Zsasz–the other thing about villains that I like is I want to hate somebody. I want to hate the bad guy. He does some loathsome things, but in the most interesting way. They’re really iconic, and memorable, and interesting… and they have great chemistry together. You know, that thing that happens, and you never know if it’s going to happen, so watching the two of them together is so much fun. It’s really cool.
The thing about these women to me is, first of all, I think they’re also unexpected in these roles as actresses. Jurnee brings a very sultry, wounded, but very strong kind of dimension to Canary. And she’s a wonderful actress. I think we’re really lucky we have Mary as our Huntress. She is mysterious, and cool, and again she’s done some really wonderful things with her career. Obviously Margot is a dream for any movie. And Rosie Perez has been really interesting as Renee. We love–every time we talk about this movie–the fact that she’s older. I’m sure that you know, and you probably even wrote about it, people were surprised that she wasn’t like a younger version. But I think it’s really great that we have all these interesting generations of women. And she’s got this world-weariness that she brings to the character that I don’t think anybody else can. But she’s also an acclaimed actress, and amazing. Ella is new to this, comes from a very fine family of actors, she’s been killing it.
Like we were saying, Ewan McGregor with his portfolio and incredible acclaim, having him as our main bad guy allows for the nuance we’ve been talking about, and the dimension. He’s certainly a very unexpected casting. And Chris Messina, I think for everybody, is going to be a wonderful discovery. He’s a wonderful actor, but nobody’s ever seen him like this. He brought A+ game to it, he got so into it. He’s amazing. We’re really proud of the cast, and I think it says a lot about the movie that we’re putting together.
BU: It was really led by Cathy. To make, at times, a slightly unexpected choice for the casting. And we had an amazing casting director [Rich Delia] who would kind of push you to a place that was… seeing something about their career that wasn’t always obvious and so everybody brings this kind of left-of-center style to it
When we last Saw Harley Quinn she was in prison getting broken out by the Joker. Do we find out how she gets to this point? Are we going to see the Joker again, and are we going to see that separation?
SK: Well you’ll see it in the movie, it’s a standalone movie, it’s not connected to Suicide Squad. It’s not a sequel, it’s not a continuation of that story. So it has nothing to do with her break out of prison. But you’re right, and we’ve been very upfront that this is about her emancipation. She and the Joker have broken up. This is her personal journey of discovery with these women. So it’s not related at all, so don’t try to apply linear logic to how the two go, because they don’t.
Stay tuned to Screen Rant for more interviews and news from our visit to the Birds of Prey set, and more!
https://screenrant.com
