Because we can put together a writers list or directors list of male names like that. With everything Luck圜hap does, we put in way more effort looking into female writers and directors for our projects. Yeah, oh my god, yeah! Things are different now. And we were off to the races.įive years ago, maybe even three years ago, “Birds of Prey” would have had a male director. It took awhile to get it together, and get it approved by the studio. You go on a ride, and it’s all pretty chronological from there. And then it becomes linear for the third act. And so we would look at a lot of films like that, like: “How did they achieve this feeling of this beautiful chaos, but within it, everything feels satisfying?” So the nonlinear aspect of the film came from those sorts of conversations. And funnily enough, it follows a three-act structure to the T, like, to the page, to the minute. We would look at a movie like that, and then we’d break it down scene by scene, minute by minute. We pulled a lot of references from the comics that we love, from different movies we love - we were really gravitating toward the idea of not having such a formulaic sort of structure, “Trainspotting” being of one of our favorite films. And we’re looking at the menu, and I was like, “What are you getting?” She said, “I could get, like, a tea or something.” I said, “I could do a tea - or, like, a mimosa.” She was like, “Yeah, I want a mimosa too!” An hour and a half later, we were drunk on a Wednesday morning, and we’ve been friends ever since. We had a meeting, like, a Wednesday morning at a caf é. You share an agent with Christina Hodson, who wrote “Birds of Prey.” Tell me about that relationship. I feel like the “Joker” film was much more grounded. There’s a clear distinction between real life and what you’re experiencing on the screen. Our world in “Birds of Prey” is very different - the aesthetic, the tone. The Joker isn’t in “Birds of Prey” or “The Suicide Squad” sequel, right? Between all those things, I really just fell in love with her. Harley has this unpredictable nature that means she could react in any way to any situation, which as an actor is just a gift. Just stuff like that, that I was like, “Oh my god, this is so great for Harley. One of the women was saying how one of the voices in her head gave her all the answers to her final medical exam, for example. Who are the voices? What are they saying? How many voices are there, and at what times do they kick in? There’s amazing TED Talks from women who in a lot of cases were career professionals, they had PhDs - incredibly intelligent women who had schizophrenia. Schizophrenia was a big one that I focused on, because, in the original screenplay, which is always what I go to, one of the lines was, “It’s the voices in my head.” So I clung on to that - it’s the voices in her head. She’s a psychiatrist who understands mental illness, but also has mental illness herself. I read the play “Fool For Love,” and suddenly I understood her relationship with Mr. But that only took a little bit of research, and reading - and then something eventually clicks into place. There’s definitely an aspect to her that took me awhile to understand, and that was why she would stay in a relationship with a guy that abuses her. Why do you think you feel so connected to the Harley Quinn character? So you’ve got a very unreliable narrator giving terrible advice, and an inaccurate account of events, quite often contradicting what you’re seeing on screen. So it’s surprising, and it’s fun - and it’s told from Harley’s point of view. And I wanted to do an R-rated film, which took a bit of convincing because at that point “Deadpool” wasn’t out. And Harley is an easy character to insert into almost any situation, because no matter what, she’s gonna just stir s- up. It seemed like a good platform for a female ensemble franchise, because so many different characters come in and out of the Birds of Prey. I stopped reading just Harley comics, and that rabbit hole led me to the “Birds of Prey” comics. I became kind of obsessed with them at some point. So I knew I wanted to find that, and help put that on screen somewhere.Īnd then while I was researching Harley, I was devouring the comics. I loved movies like the Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu “Charlie’s Angels” growing up. I love them! I know heaps of other women who love them. And I love action films, and I think there’s a misconception perhaps subconsciously for people: action films are for dudes, girls don’t really like them. I’d been thinking for quite some time how there was a real gap in the market for a female ensemble action film. You got the idea for “Birds of Prey” while you were shooting “Suicide Squad.” Tell me about that.
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