Birds of Prey Star Names One of Her Favorite Scenes

Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey is full of action-packed sequences, and one of the stars of the film [...]

By Aaron Perine

Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey is full of action-packed sequences, and one of the stars of the film just explained her favorite. Jurnee Smollett-Bell saw a fan post a clip of her Black Canary devastating those thugs in an alley while protecting Harley. Then, the star decided to give a little bit more context to how it stacks up with the rest of the action in the film. She's a big fan, and as an added bonus, now people realize that this one was filmed very early on in the movie's development. Birds of Prey might not have been the giant event that some at Warner Bros. probably envisioned, but it has dedicated fans now. Check out her thoughts on the fight scene down below.

Cathy Yan worked very hard to craft a film that rejects the male gaze. In a piece from The New York Times, they mention the scene that features Roman Sionis forcing a woman in his club to strip. Yan commented, "We were pretty conscious not to muddy what the scene was meant to be about, by not offering anything remotely vulnerable or titillating. There are choices like that which felt very deliberate; we were making sure we were protecting our female actors, even in a scene that was about humiliation."

"It was less, 'I'm going to unpack and reject the male gaze of every director who's come before me' and more of an unconscious, innate reaction about what feels right." Focusing on actor's faces was key for Yan during the entire process. "That's where you tell the story. 'Look up here! I'm talking to you!'"

In her take on Dinah, Smollett-Bell channeled that demand to be respected. "She's the Dinah Lance that we know and love from the comics, you know?" she said last October. "This ferocious street fighter. When we meet Dinah in the film, though, she's a singer in Roman's Black Mask club, and she's kind of disenfranchised and disconnected from the world. She doesn't really want to have anything to do with crime fighting or being a good-doer, which is so against her nature because we know Dinah to be all heart. So it's really about her accepting her gift and accepting her power and that's what was so fascinating for me is to explore this woman who has such strength, but exploring someone who doesn't want to own her power."

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