It was 23 years ago this month that Harley Quinn made her debut in the Emmy Award-winning Batman: The Animated Series. The creative team behind the show, Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, created Joker’s bubbly and outrageous female sidekick. Funny enough, they had only planned to use her one time, but she instantly became a hit and the rest is history!
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Fast forward to the present: Fans are eagerly-awaiting next August, when they’ll see Margot Robbie’s take on Harley Quinn in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad movie. In May, Bruce Timm was hesitantly-positive about Robbie’s punk-rock version after seeing her costume for the first time. He described it as “interesting” and “pretty cute!” But what does co-creator Paul Dini think of it?
“I know it’s jarring to a lot of the people who love the classic Bruce Timm suit, I love it myself. But in that world [of the Suicide Squad movie], I just don’t see it happening,” Dini told the Shanlian On Batman podcast on Thursday (transcribed by Forbes). “It’s a rougher, more street look. I think it works fine.”
Dini is also very pleased that The Wolf of Wall Street actress is bringing his creation to life on the big screen. “I think Margot [Robbie] is very nice, she’s a very wonderful actress, certainly very attractive and very talented,” he gushed. “I’m very excited to see that interpretation of Harley.”
He even weighed in on Jared Leto’s look for The Joker, describing it as a “decadent rockstar.” And when he views Leto’s Joker and Robbie’s Harley as the dysfunctional couple they are, he sees a resemblance to Sex Pistols’ temperamental bassist Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman) and his troubled girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. “There’s a little bit of Sid and Nancy to the Joker and Harley look, which I always felt would not be a bad look if they were in a live-action movie.” Dini added, “If you put them in that realistic world I feel they would look like down-and-out rockers. They would look dangerous.”
You can listen to Dini’s comments in the audio clip below.
Directed and written by David Ayer (Fury) and features an all-star cast: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman, Cara Delevingne, Viola Davis, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Adam Beach, Jay Hernandez, and Karen Fukahara.
Suicide Squad is set to be released August 5, 2016.
