After three films as famed Batman nemesis Harley Quinn, Margot Robbie says she’s excited to see Lady Gaga give her take on the role when she takes over in “Joker: Folie a Deux.”
During an interview about her new movie “Amsterdam”With MTV NewsRobbie was asked about her thoughts on her Oscar-nominated fellow actress taking over the role she helped launch with a pair of films. “Suicide Squad”Films and spinoffs “Birds of Prey.”Robbie granted Gaga her blessing. But she also stated that Harley deserves a long list famous actors to portray her in the same way Batman or Joker.
“It makes me so happy,” Robbie said, “because I said from the very beginning that all I want is for Harley Quinn to be one of those characters the way … like Macbeth or Batman always gets passed from great actor to great actor. Someone gets to do their Batman, or someone gets to do their Macbeth.”
Robbie continued: “I feel like, in not so many cases, are there female characters — Queen Elizabeth I, but beyond that, which I got to have a crack at as well, which I was honored to do. I was like, ‘Wow! Cate Blanchett did Queen Elizabeth I. Now I get to.’ It’s such an honor to have built a foundation strong enough that Harley can now be one of those characters that other actors get to have a go at playing. And I think [Lady Gaga will] do something incredible with it.”
Indeed, it is certain that Gaga’s take on Harley Quinn will be unlike any other we’ve seen before, much like how Joaquin Phoenix gave his own unique, Oscar-winning portrayal of Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime in the first “Joker”In 2019.
First published in “Batman: The Animated Series”In 1992, Harley Quinn, played by Arleen Sorkin as a voice actor, was originally a psychologist at Arkham Asylum. She used the name Dr. Harleen Quinzel. Her life was changed when she was given psychiatric sessions by the Joker. He manipulated her and made her fall in love with him, leading her to become his sidekick and help him escape from Arkham Asylum.
Harley has become more than a second-class banana to the Joker in the years since and is now a beloved Batman character. In 2020’s “Birds of Prey” and 2021’s “The Suicide Squad,”Robbie played Harley when she was able to find her independence from Joker. She became a force-of-nature that walks the fine line between villainy and heroism.
Harley also got her own animated series, HBO Max’s cult-hit animated series. Kaley Cuoco is her character as Harley starts her own supervillain squad to take on the Joker. But over the course of the show’s three seasons — and with a fourth on the way — Harley slowly begins to realize that despite her constant battles with the Joker and Batman, she no longer wants to be a villain despite fears that leaving the bad guy life behind might end her relationship with her wife, Poison Ivy.
After “Joker” provided a new imagining of how Batman’s most famous nemesis came to be, it’s possible that Gaga will tell Harley’s origins in her own way, further exploring how the man formerly known as Arthur Fleck is inspiring thousands of Gotham City’s downtrodden residents to embrace his furious, nihilistic worldview to get revenge on the uncaring millionaires that fill the city’s halls of power.
“Joker: Folie a Deux”Released Oct. 4, 2024