‘Batgirl’ Screenwriter Explains Her Approach To The Character

While Batgirl’s trip to the big screen hit a few bumps in the road, it appears she is back on track, and screenwriter Christina Hodson recently broke down her approach to the character.

Hodson is just coming off of the successful revitalization fo the Transformers franchise Bumblebee and is busy at work crafting the script to not only Batgirl but also Warner Bros’ upcoming Birds of Prey. Batgirl is still being kept pretty tightly under wraps, but Hodson did admit she is quickly falling for the character during the screenwriting process.

“I’m in the middle of falling in love with her,” Hodson told Variety. “I always feel differently at the beginning, middle, and end. Charlie feels like an old friend now, because that was a while ago and because she is so personally inspired. Harley just feels like my crazy alter ego. When I’m feeling nuts, that’s what Harley is. And Batgirl…honestly it’s funny, there’s a little piece of me in every character I write. They start with me, and then they take on a life of their own.”

“She’s been through so many iterations,” Hodson said. “There’s certain characteristics of hers that are always there that I’m excited to develop further. Whenever I’m writing a character who’s based on someone who’s existed in a previous form, whether it’s comics or a movie or anything, I always hope to bring something new to them and bring them to life in their own way, even if they fairly iconic like Harley Quinn or Batgirl. I think fans want the original, to be honest, but they also want to see something they haven’t seen before.”

Hodson is enjoying bringing new characters to the big screen, as Batgirl, Black Canary, and Huntress haven’t made their proper debuts in DC’s new movie universe.

“It’s always fun introducing audiences to a new character,” Hodson told ComicBook.com. “It’s great doing a deep dive into all the different characters, doing my research on the characters collectively bit also individually and getting to know them a bit more, and then feeling free to go off leash a little bit and do something new and different and bring them to screen in a way that felt right alongside Harley.”

Fans will see Huntress and Black Canary debut alongside Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), which hits theaters on February 7th, 2020. Batgirl has no release date yet.