How One of Birds of Prey’s Best Moments Came Together

Warner Bros. and DC’s highly-anticipated Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) has finally arrived in theaters and fans seem to be loving what they’re seeing. The action, humor, story, and empowering relationships between the characters are all being praised by audiences and critics. There’s one moment in particular, however, that is seeing even more buzz and love than all the rest. Believe it or not, that moment is all about the gifting of a hair band, and it helps tie everything in Birds of Prey together (pun intented).

No spoilers here, but there is a moment in Birds of Prey where the main characters are in a fight with some bad guys and Black Canary’s hair keeps getting in the way, so Harley pops over to hand her a hair band. Black Canary simply ties her hair back on the fly and keeps kicking ass. It’s an incredibly realistic moment that women are connecting to because it feels like the kind of genuine interaction that never gets shown in the middle of all the chaos of a fight. The decision to add it here is helping viewers connect with Birds of Prey on a deeper level.

Birds of Prey star Jurnee Smollett-Bell, who plays Black Canary, spoke to Digital Spy about that very moment, and said that it was really just an effort to be practical, doing what normal people would be doing in that situation.

“It’s fun ’cause it’s kind of silly that Black Canary’s like, you know, she’s fighting and – it’s also a commentary on all of them [and] trying to keep the film grounded and more scrappy,” Smollett-Bell said. “I do think that comes from all of us just having conversations of like, ‘Yeah, you know [when] you go to the gym, you’re going to tie your hair back’. So it’s literally just [a matter of], ‘Well, what’s practical?’”

According to director Cathy Yan, a lot of those grounded action sequences were made as realistically as possible, with the stars of the movie doing a lot work themselves. She told Digital Spy that the stars had to train for months in order to avoid “cheating” the authenticity of the big scenes.

“I didn’t want to kind of cheat it through all these different cuts and shots,” Yan explained. “It really required all the women to train for months and months. That’s really Margot just running down the street and she’s probably huffing and puffing because that was like take 10 of her running down multiple blocks, and [it was the] same with all of them.”

Have you had a chance to see Birds of Prey? Tells us what you thought of the movie in the comments below!

Birds of Prey is now playing in theaters.